Dudley Hobbs was an designer and aerodynamicist at the Bristol Aeroplane Company having designed wings. When Bristol branched out into building cars they decided to use their wind tunnel to benefit the design of their cars. Thus Dudley Hobbs took an abandoned pre-war design from Carrozzeria Touring and transformed it in the wind tunnel to produce the Bristol 401 in 1948 and the convertible 402. The 403 was a mechanically upgraded 401 with few body changes. Dudley Hobbs changed the Bristol grille from the BMW kidney grille to something resembling an aircraft engine intake for the Bristol 404 in 1953; he also gave it little wings at the tail. Bristol responded to requests for a family car by launching the 4-door Bristol 405 designed by Dudley Hobbs for 1954. The 1957 Bristol 407 was new body, and appeared to resemble the Graber-designed Alvis TD21, although Alvis actually made their own version of the Graber TC108/G. The design of the Bristol 406 went forward as the first V8-engined 407 in 1961, as the 408 in 1963, the 409 in 1965, the 410 in 1967 and the 411 in 1968. Hobbs designed his final Bristol as the 1976 603 with Chrysler V8 engine.