B8/110

This late model red coupe was initially sold in Sydney. The engine number was A1E1206. The A1E prefix, as many people know, was on every factory built Nagari and doesn't tell you if it was a 302 or a 351. I have a strong feeling that this one was a 351. It certainly went pretty hard. Fords issued the numbers and the prefix indicated that the engine was not destined for a Ford vehicle on their production line but was supplied to an outside customer. It could have been a 4 cylinder with the same prefix. Anyway, the first owner was Wayne Wale of Carlton, NSW, where it lived for about 6 years. I recall it turning up for a registration inspection, here in South Australia, in January 1979, still with its personal NSW number WW-175 and about 6 weeks later, it went on sale at Performance Cars on North East Road, Windsor Gardens. The first person to purchase it was someone in Renmark who found it too claustrophobic and too hard to get into and returned it to Performance Cars. They then sold it to Neil Von Brint who operated a couple of businesses a few doors up North East Road, called I.T.S. Sports Cars and Scorpion Racing, for $8,500. This was back in 1979. Neil had it for a while before selling it to Bob Trickey, who you may recall operated a parts and accessories business on the other Gilbert Street/King William Street corner (now a vacant block of land) to the Brecknock Hotel where we currently hold our meetings. It was on Bob's watch that the upholstery was changed to deep buttoned leather (since replaced) but the Webasto sunroof was on it when it came over from NSW. There were some very competitive Nagari owners in those days but none more so than Gus Safranko and Bob Trickey. Back then we used to have access to Mallala on weekends, before it was recommissioned. Gus and Bob were always trying to beat each others' times and spending lots of money to do so. If one of them was beaten one week, they'd be back next time with a bigger carby or better extractors or whatever it took.

Mark Hentschke was the next owner. Mark's brother, Kym, had B8/93 about that time. That car is now in Sydney, in the hands of Geoff and Sue Lewis as far as I know.

Mark sold the car to Keith Rilstone, who, even though he was retired, still couldn't get motor racing out of his system. He used a Mazda RX7 for drag racing and the Bolwell for circuit work. Eventually he rolled the Bolwell at Collingrove hillclimb, writing off the body. One of John Gourlay's racing bodies was purchased as a replacement and Kevin Cociani was engaged to effect the repairs. After cutting off the guard flares, a rethink occurred and it was eventually decided to repair the old body. This was done, the car returned to resplendent and it went back to being Bolwell-in-residence at the Birdwood museum until Keith's death. You might recall in Australian Classic Car, I think it was, a competition where the winners got to drive their dream car. One winner's dream was to drive a Nagari and this was arranged at Birdwood and this photo below was taken on that occasion.


After Keith's death, the car was sold by his wife to Udo Selter, who by this time was living in Darwin. Another restoration took place and, in the process, as you can see, it became a brighter red and lost the black bottom half. It no longer has the sunroof although I suspect that happened after the rollover.

Udo took it out to run at Hidden Valley whenever he could and, I keep getting told, has posted some pretty awesome times. Eventually the desire to build another GT40 replica took hold and he put the Bolwell on the market. It was bought by a syndicate of 3, Michael, Steve and Steve, all club members, and the car was brought back to Adelaide. They use it on a rotation basis. They've had it for 2 or 3 years now and it seems they enjoy it very much. Not long after they acquired it, Hans Neubert flew out from Germany to write a story on Bolwells for a prominent German classic car magazine. He used B8/110 as the basis of most of his photographs, apart from the ones of Campbell. Hans also produced a 12 photograph calendar using his Nagari photographs and I really treasure my copy of it along with my copy of the magazine with the comprehensive article.

This last photo's for you, Wayne, as it shows the gear lever surround you're looking for.