- You are here:
- BOC
- About the Bristol Owners Club (BOC)
About the Bristol Owners Club (BOC)
Membership
There are currently832members. Car ownership is not a requirement: enthusiasm is enough!
One membership fee confers full membership and benefits to the whole
family. If you wish to join, you may use our online
application form.
The Club has members living all over the world and, in addition to corresponding through the various publications, members maintain a high level of personal contact. Overseas Members are particularly invited to get in touch when visiting the UK and meet owners in this country. Details of our sister clubs and overseas contacts may be found on the overseas page.
Summary of membership benefits
- Advice on buying: if you are thinking of buying a Bristol car, join now!. As well as maintaining an up-to-date list of cars for sale (available to members only), we provide guidance on reliable sources of cars. Before buying from online auction and “classified” advertisers, you are strongly advised to consult our online information services before parting with any money!
- Spares: Assistance is provided to locate and/or swap spares. Specialist services are available. The Club is now collaborating with the manufacturer to source and maintain the supply of essential parts, now not always "in stock" items, for the older cars. Contact ourSpares Coordinator for further information.
- Our online services include the following exceptional benefits for members:
- The Club has an online discussion forum: see the Forum Page. Some areas are available only to Club members.
- If you're looking to buy a Bristol car, we maintain a constantly-updated list of cars for sale complete with photographs, car and contact details where available.
- A knowledge base (wiki) containing technical information and details of spares and service providers;
- a growing collection of technical and Bulletin Articles in our online library;
- We also hold an archive of scanned images of all Bulletin back issues to Issue 120 — where not already converted to HTML;
- comprehensive and up to date listings of car and member contact data;
- RSS feeds to alert members about recent additions.
- RAC discounted Membership rates: see how you can recoup your annual Club Membership fee with the savings available.
- Discounted Car Insurance is available from AON Risk Services Ltd.
- Club Regalia: online form makes ordering easy.
- Reprint Service: the Catalogue is online.
Activities
These range from the purely social – arranged specialist seminars, tests of driving skill, team events and competitive class licensed rallying – through the annual Concours d'Élégance, to relatively serious regional pub lunches and the celebrated annual overseas tours, which have been known to involve a certain degree of quite exhaustive gastronomic and oenological research.
Subscription
The basic subscription rate is£35.00 per year for EC residents, and £40.00 for those outside the EC. Reductions are available to those joining on or after 1 July and 1 October (see Club Rule 5.4). During December, new members paying a full annual subscription will be paid-up until the end of the following year.£25.00£5.00 In all cases, a joining fee of 12 is payable, and also an annual levy of 11 to the BOC Heritage Trust.
| Joining | UK / EC (£) | Non-EC (£) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan - 30 Jun | 65.00 | 70.00 |
| 1 Jul - 30 Sep | 47.50 | 50.00 |
| 1 Oct - 31 Dec | 38.75 | 40.00 |
Publications
Bulletin
The Bulletin began its life as a newsletter, but has evolved into a high quality pictorial magazine published about three times a year. See the advertising page for further details.
Newsletter
The Newsletter is published every two months, in late February, April, June, August, October and December, with copy date on the fourth of the month. There is a regular For Sale/Wanted section, free for members: further details on the advertising page, where a PDF sample is available.
Membership List
A saddle stitched Membership List is issued annually to all current members. It contains contact details of Club Members and a summary of members' cars. This information is also available live online, to members only.
Online Information
A large and growing online library, available to members only, contains articles, owners' manuals, drawings, wiring diagrams and a scanned archive of Bulletin back numbers.
Members also have access to a Knowledge Base dealing with many technical issues, as well as sections dealing with sales & wants, and write-ups and photographs of past events.
Our chassis list is now available to members "live" online. As well as their own contact details, members can access and maintain not only full historical information about their cars, but individual photo albums. The car lists link to these photo albums, making it possible to browse them online. Links in our online articles go direct to the car record, so that it is possible to see information and photographs relating to that specific car.
Reprint service
A comprehensive Reprint Service is available strictly to members only, offering original sections or complete Workshop Manuals, Owners' Handbooks, Parts Manuals, Brochures, etc., for most models, plus copies of original road tests and other technical or general articles and reviews.
History of the Club
In 1952, a small number of Bristol owners having a common interest in BMW design, engineering, and history, along with a larger number of BMW owners, formed the BMW Car Club, incorporating Bristol cars. Thus the UK BMW Club was founded circa December 1952.
Over time of course, as the number of Bristol owners in the BMW Car Club slowly increased, and as the post-war BMW company developed new designs, the original commonalty of interest was gradually diminished. Clearly there was a need for a new "chapter". Recognition that the Bristol Owners' Club could be formed as an independent club was given by the Royal Automobile Club in September 1964.
The Bristol Owners' Club was properly constituted at a special meeting held on the 6th November 1964. The first committee was elected from many of the office bearers of the BMW Club, including Godfrey Charles Oxley-Sidey, ex Chairman of the BMW Club, who was later elected Chairman of the BOC chapter. It was agreed that it would be operated as a separate section of the BMW club, thereafter sharing a common dual badged quarterly magazine.
In 1970, after operating in tandem for approximately 6 years and finally having achieved viability in terms of membership numbers, full independence was achieved and the two clubs amicably separated.
Subsequently Godfrey Oxley-Sidey was to be awarded the position of first Honorary President of the BOC — a post which he held until his death in March 1999.
During his tenure as Honorary President, Godfrey – as he always preferred to be called in his quiet and unassuming manner – wrote two books on the marque, The Quiet Survivor and BRISTOL – An Illustrated History. These were limited editions and are now long out of print. They remain a lasting testament to his enthusiasm for the marque.
With the advent of information technology in the 1990s, Bob Charlton (General Registrar) pioneered its application for the benefit of the Club. Not only did he transfer the old paper records of the car registry into a computer database: he created the whole public area of this web site. The informativeness of the historical and descriptive pages eloquently attest to Bob's encyclopædic knowledge of the marque, for which every visitor to this site will have cause to be grateful.
Logos
If you wish to reproduce the Club logo, you may download a copy:
| SVG yellow | SVG orange | SVG is a non-proprietary XML-standard format for vector graphics on the web. |
| EPS yellow | EPS orange | this “extended PostScript” format is supported by most print houses. |
