Thursday, June 4, 2020

A beautiful photo by Lynton Hemer.

Taken at the last PI Classic. This photo has re-ignited the great debate about what to call the car. There should be no debate. My recollection was that it was originally called a Jaguar Healey Special which accurately describes it, being a Jaguar engine in an Austin Healey chassis with a special body. Even during the ownership of Graeme Bolwell, who built the current body, it certainly wasn't referred to as a Bolwell and at that time "Bolwell Cars" hadn't even been established. A subsequent owner, with encouragement from Bob Minogue, named it the Elgaram and even had a badge cast for it. It was his car and he could call it what he liked. Now, a bit later Bolwell began producing sports car kits. Their very first model they called the Mark 4 as due respect to 3 previous specials created by one brother or another, with number 1 being a large clubman looking creation built on an old Ford V8 after the damaged sedan body had been removed.  Number 2 was a modified MG J2 and number 3 the above creation by Graeme. The spanner in the works was that there is another "Mark 3", the creation by Winston Bolwell of a self styled fibreglass body also on a Healey chassis. That car still exists as well. Perhaps the first production car should have been called the Mark 5. Anyway, we enthusiastic Bolwell lovers have gotten used to calling the early specials Marks 1, 2 and 3. There was a time when the late Pat Ryan (Conor's dad) after he completed the restoration of the "Mk. 3" proudly took the car to the Bolwell factory to show it off. He was no doubt disappointed by the mild interest shown by whoever he saw. I'm sure that if Campbell or Graeme were there the reception would have been quite different (witness their reaction to the car by both brothers at the previous PI Classic).

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