Thursday, June 24, 2010

For Ashley and Travis.

Here's a series of photos of a particular Mark 7. Ashley and Travis don't know each other but they both have an interest in the same car, sort of. Ash because he has just purchased it and is now faced with the task of putting it back together again, and Travis because it was his dad's car when he was a little kid. The car in question is the one that spent a lot of time in a boat yard in Fremantle. Ashley contacted me after talking to one of its former owners, Colin McAskill, enquiring about its SA history and whether I had any pictures of it from the old days. Here are some of the ones I sent him and below is what I was able to tell him.
The car was originally bought from Kadala Industries by Brenton Stanfield, an electrician, on 10/10/1970. (by the way, Ash, being a Kadala car it should have a chassis number somewhere). Brenton lived at Renmark at the time but later moved to Colonel Light Gardens and then to Mt. Barker (the SA one) where he was when Murray Willmott bought it from him on 4/12/1973. Murray and Colin both worked together at ATO at the time and became bitten by the Bolwell bug as Colin drove a very smart V8 Mk.7, the one Chris Gascoigne is restoring now. He used it in ProdSports and just about everything else for about 4 years until he got really serious and acquired the Ron McPherson racer. He sold it to Colin who passed it on to Geoff and Sue Mann, Travis' parents, on 5/1/1977. After a few years of racing it was getting a bit tired and Geoff turned it into a very smart car and it was he who painted it that attractive metallic blue. Anyway, the SA registration expired in 8/8/1980 about the time that the car went to WA. I'm sure Stacey or Barry can fill us in on its WA history.
Photo 1 is Murray at AIR........
.....and photo 2 is also at AIR with Ken Stratton hot up his clacker.Photo 3 is at the Hamilton Easter and it's a nice little exercise identifying all those people. I can see Brenda, Murray, Vern, Ronnie, Monica, George, Teri Lucas, Pip, a very young Peter Mac to name but a few.Photo 4 the car is accompanied by another familiar Bolwell when it was in the hands of one lady owner who "only drove it to church on Sundays".Photo 5 was taken immediately after its new paint job when it was trailered to One Tree Hill to be photographed for the 1978 calendar. That's Murray's trailer, my AP5, Peter Taylour's bum and Geoff's Fairmont GS wagon. Not sure about the Monaro.Both Geoff and Travis are into 240Zs these days which is not a bad thing.

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