Monday, June 27, 2016

Must be a pretty quick beach buggy.

The green car behind it is a Geneer Outlaw. Where are they all now seeing they made 37 of them?

Remember these?

They're called trafficators.

How practical.

A Lambo with a towbar.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

A REAL kit car.


New truck.

Is this to be the new body Bolwell will be making for Iveco?
Talking about Australian made trucks, here's the Caldwell Vale.

Grey stuff - 20

For the next blackout.

The Twiggy car.

Matching eyelashes - legend says that the young Marcello Gandini had Twiggy in mind when he made last details on the Miura P400 headlights before production. The 400 SV lost this wonderful detail. That's fashion! This lime green orange striped Miura was Twiggys personal one auctioned 2012 in down under #twiggy #miura #lamborghini #gandini#matchingeyes #matchingeyelashes #fashion#carsofinstagram #caroftheday #instacar#thevintagehour

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Coupes, where are they now?

I'm pretty sure that this........
.....and this........
.....are the same car.
But what about this one?
With the ill-fitting windscreen.

What's this all about?


Steam driven bicycles.

What a marvellous idea.
Never did catch on.

Neither did Peter Pellandine's steam cars he built up at Cherry Gardens.

The Hawker V8 Special.

We all know the innovative Chamberlain brothers who produced that FWD Chamberlain racing car and of course, the rugged Chamberlain tractors. 'Bob' Chamberlain (Alan Hawker Chamberlain) developed a mid engined passenger car in 1938.
Being too busy with many other inventions, Bob handed the car over to his cousin, 'Jim' Hawker and the Hawker V8 was born.
Jim was the regular driver of the Chamberlain racing car. He was actually Harry Hawker but was called Jim so he wouldn't be confused with his uncle Harry, the designer of the Sopwith Camel aeroplane and the founder of Hawker Aviation. Jim Passed the project on to another cousin, Alan Hawker, who is pictured above with the car. That particular car spent many years in the York Motor Museum until the big sell off and it is now owned, I believe, by John Hazelden, the author of the now out of print book on Bob Chamberlain.

What on earth is this?

Ian Smith took this photo at the Winton Historics.

KM 200.

From the pages of the Courier Mail, 24th October, 2009.
THIS is a rare piece of Australian motoring history.
Mechanic Jon Hansford, 49, has built this 1957 KM200 kit car from the shell to ensure that the country's motoring heritage doesn't "rot away in some shed or back yard".
KM stands for Keith Morrison, who made these kit cars in the mid to late 1950s in a Sydney garage.
Only 27 were made and only about 10 still exist. Hansford's is the only road-registered model in Australia.
"I believe this car to be an important part of Australia's history in the manufacture of cars," Hansford says.
"I found out during investigation about this car that the chassis and body were both made by Keith Morrison. All bodies were made by him, but some chassis were made by Nota and a lot were home-made by the people who bought the bodies. That makes this combination very rare."
The KM200 kit cost £266 in the 1950s. Hansford bought it in 2007 for $1000 as a bare body and chassis.
"That is how it was for its entire life," he said.
"It never had a dashboard, engine or even holes drilled for headlights.
"I've spent about $7000 and about 15 months part-time on it, so I would never sell it."
Hansford has done all the building work including fabricating many of the parts such as the suspension, seats and floor.
"The idea of a kit car back then was a cheap way to have a motor car," he says. "You had to use parts that you had lying around, so I've stuck to the same spirit and used what I had. "The Datsun engine and rear axle were in my workshop.
"Even the British racing green paint was given to me by a friend who paints trucks and had it left over. Although if I had to buy the paint, I would have bought British racing green, anyway."
The KM200, which looks like a D-Type Jaguar and is inspired by a British "Falcon" kit car, consists of a fibreglass body and a steel box chassis.
Hansford's model is powered by a 1970s A12 Datsun 1200cc engine and four-speed gearbox from a 120Y, a Morris Minor torsion bar front suspension and a Sprite MK1 steering rack.
The Austin A40 Farina rear housing is modified to accept trailing arms and a 4.22 Sprite differential centre.
The rear shocks are coil overs and there are no sway bars on the suspension. The steel wheels are 14 inch by four inch, the brakes are nine inch Morris elite front drums and eight inch elite rears, while the master cylinder is a Datsun tandem with no booster.
According to Hansford, it stops and goes "OK".
"I've no idea what the top speed is, but it will sit comfortably on 90km/h. Anything over that gets a bit scary," he says.
The idea of building the KM200 came over a beer after Hansford had completed his third restoration of an old "Wallace and Gromit" Austin A30.
"I was having a beer with a mate and I was wondering what I would do next, and he had this (the KM200) in his back yard and he said 'what about that?' "
The idea turned into a nightmare, with the fibreglass body full of "cancer".
Hansford has registered the finished product for club use only.
"I'm a member of the Paramount Small Bore Rifle Club which also has a car club," he says. "I take it to shows and we do rides once or twice a year.
"It's quite impractical as a daily driver with no roof and windscreen. You have to wear a helmet and goggles like on a motorcycle.
"It weighs only 540kg so it shakes around a fair bit and you have no crash protection.
"You also have to be careful not to downshift too quick as it locks the back wheels as there is no weight in the back.
"But apart from that it drives a treat.
"It's pretty noisy but a lot of fun."


Mark Hinchliffe

There must be a reason for this.


Believe it or not.

This is a Moke.
And this is a TR7.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Never mind the rest of the house.

Is the garage big enough Bernie?

Grey stuff - 18


Kapunda - week 87.

When a Bentley convertible is in town it doesn't go un-noticed.

I have a theory.

No, it's more than a theory. I'm making a case for Justin Murphy's Nagari to be B8/46.
When previous owner, Leo Kusters, applied for FIA paperwork we made a case for him based on the car being B8/44. Our reasoning for that was that the car had come into his hands via the UK and South Africa. We were aware that B8/44 was an advanced kit (e.g. complete minus engine and gearbox) shipped to Pete Dutiot, an enthusiast in Johannesburg, South Africa. What we didn't know was that Peter had 2 Nagaris. The real B8/44 is in Spain and has been for donkey's years. When Mr. Dutoit wanted to move his Bolwells on, he enlisted the aid of Brian Taylor of "Rolo Motors" in Sandton, JoBurg, who shipped them to Chris Camp in Kent, UK. This was in approximately 1998. Chris registered Justin's car EKP 224 K with chassis number B804471, "officially" issued by BCCA-Vic. He added an orange stripe to the sky blue paintwork. A cage was built and the trailing arms changed to parallel in UK by ASD Automotive System Developments in Maidstone. Chris put the car up for sale in 1999, finally selling it in 29/12/2000 to Leo Kusters and Ab Flippe in Holland. It was exported 11/01/2001.
The car now has FIA papers and they say that its chassis number is B8/42. We all know that B8/42 lives in Perth and is owned by Barry and Chris Currie. This is the plate on the car as it came from Leo.
The numbers are stamped very neatly, much too neatly to have been done by Bolwell.
The FIA papers show 2 previous owners, Peter Warren of Australia and John Clince of Spain. The number B8/42 has been made up, either by Kusters or Clince. Chris C sold the car to Leo as number 44. Maybe when the 2 cars left South Africa, only one went to Chris. No-one knows how B8/44 got to Ramon Lopez' garage in Madrid. It was left there for work to be done and never collected.
Now, lets get back to Peter Warren. He raced a Nagari coupe, predominantly in NSW in the early 70s. At some stage he abandoned his first car and built up a better one. The first one presumably went overseas. In the mid 70s Peter moved to another class of racing (F2?) and sold his Nagari to Barry Main. Barry, in his own words, referred to the car as "unofficially B8/46". It is not impossible for it being "unofficial" that it was built as a replacement for the "real" B8/46. Now that opens up another can of worms. When Barry stopped racing, his race car was "parted out", with the body going in one direction and the chassis in another. Thus , there are 2 new owners laying claim to B8/46. If the "real" B8/46 is in England, that makes 3.
If I am correct in all this, Justin would have "racing heritage" in his car, possibly useful in Historic racing. He wants to register the car in the UK. He has rego paperwork showing chassis no. B8/04471 and FIA paperwork showing chassis no. B8/42, neither of which are really true.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

For those interested in the Mk.7 for sale in SA.

Some shots of the engine bay.
Ref. Bollyblog archives. Mk.7 for sale. 1st March 2016. Deceased estate.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

OMG!

A Holden woody.

Friday, June 17, 2016

From the Apple Isle.

Ellis French sent this photo of the Bruno Carosi Mk.5.
Sadly, it no longer exists, having been destroyed by fire.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Collingrove.

....in 1952
.....and in more recent times.

The Gosford Motor Museum is now open.

Now you can get to see the Mark 7 with Nagari doors again.