Another great picture

I know Tony Shaw has some really nice Bolwell photos but this is a standout for me.

Photo of the Month. 2.

I really love Bobbie Taylor's photographs. Just take a look at this.

Norm's Clemente at Mallala.

Mystery solved.

Remember this? Hume Weir in 1976.

It's a long time ago and I was certain it was Trevor Jones' red one. Now note that distinctive bonnet scoop.
Then along came this picture of Alfredo's from Calder, same year.

Same scoop. The car's blue. Must be John Gourlay.
Peter G's Auto Action clipping from 1977 confirms it.

Here's John's car at AIR, same year. Still has all the holes in the nose but it looks like the ProdSports police have caught up with the bonnet scoop.

That's a young Ken Stratton in the yellow Bolwell t-shirt.

Fair swap?

Stacey just swapped his Bolwell Colac Easter t-shirt and his J & S Hunter one for a Thai military shirt with a Thai soldier on the Burma border.  Next thing there'll be replicas turning up up there.

1965 Nalla Holden

As you know I love grey Holden motors so I had to show you this.

This is the Nalla Holden on a shakedown run at Calder in 1965 and yes, that's a grey motor. I don't know if it's dry sumped but I suppose it is. Actually that black strip under the nose is an attempt to photoshop out the tow rope as this was just after the blower blow off valve blew off.

This is the same car today in the hands of its current owner Henry Walker at Wakefield Park.

I'm sure he's much safer in it than the old days. Probably no big holes in the firewall even.

This is Henry diving under another grey powered (albeit more upright) car, the 1952 Anderson Holden. I'd have either.

More Papaya Orange

The things that crop up on eBay.

1968 M6B
Don't bother looking it up. It expired some time ago. I just like looking at it.

Clemente Mark 2 undressed.

McLaren/Ikara similarities.

What does this McLaren F1 GTR have in common with my Ikara?

The VW Golf gearknob of course!

Wrong Nagari.

The Sandy Hollow- Gulgong railway line

Is a railway line in northern New South Wales, Australia. The line forms a cross country connection with the Main North line and the Gwabegar line and ultimately on to the Main West line creating a circuitous bypass of Sydney for freight traffic heading between the west and north of New South Wales. The line was opened in 1985 Cox’s Gap Tunnel This is a straight 761m tunnel and was one of the few parts of the original Sandy Hollow Railway project to be completed. To avoid going over the steep Gap it was used by motorists on the Ulan Rd until “reclaimed” as a railway tunnel in 1982. In the 1970’s it featured in the opening sequence for the TV motor show Torque with Peter Wherrett with a car bursting from the tunnel. The rail line is mainly used to transport coal from Ulan and ore from Cobar.

To see the opening sequence from Torque, use the following link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V05KdP4niUI

For those interested in numbers, the Sports used in the opening was B8/59 a Silver Blue car originally delivered to Gary O’Neill in the ACT, it was Phase 3 powered, does anyone know it’s whereabouts, last know to have been auctioned at Perth in 1993 by Sotheby’s as part of the Paul Terry International Collection. (It was painted red at the time).

A nice little article in this Month's Slipstream. Yes, the silver blue sports, B8/59, was used in the opening sequence of Torque and was Phase 3 powered but it didn't go to Gary in the ACT. It was bought as a kit by Daryl Siggs and built at Governor Young Auto Port by Keith English. It has been written about in this blog at least once. Which one was Gary O'Neill's car?

Flares of a different kind

From the BJ44 blog is something I didn't know about standard equipment in Japan.

JDM Emergency Flare

By folkertbj44

Since we are talking safety, lets focus on a very nice and Japanese Domestic Market only item; the Safety flare. Due to Japanese traffic regulations, every Japanese car needs to have an ‘emergency flare’. This is basically a piece of firework that can be ignited the way you lit a match.
You use this flare when you are in an accident or when your car broke down next to a road. You lit the flare and place it on the ground a few metres away from your car. It will burn for about an hour and gives you enough visibility for other traffic users.
The plastic shell of my original flare was old and brittle and the bright red color was faded. It took me a while to source a nice one on Ebay, but a seller from Japan had some for sale. In my Landcruiser (with Air Conditioning) the flare is mounted with two clips on the right side of the A/C casing. When there’s no A/C, the flare is mounted with the same type of clips on the front side of the heater.
Yet another typical JDM item that completes my BJ44 Landcruiser…. hurray!!

Sold!

McArlus Cars - 28 - stickers on.

At bit of a milestone number update!

The only thing missing from the last one was a few stickers to really set the car off, well here they are!

Regards

Simon

For those who don’t know, or haven’t guessed, the McArlus is based on a dream of mine to own a Can Am sports car. Clearly I don’t have the money to buy and run one (forgetting for a moment the need to also have some ability behind the wheel!), so instead the decision was made to build a roughly ¾ scale one from scratch.

In retrospect it may have been simpler to just to get second job and buy the real thing!

When it comes to Can Am racing, Mclaren cars were head and shoulders above the rest, so the choice of car was fairly straightforward. A lot of time has been spent buying and reading books, models and videos to get the shape and as many details on the car correct. Not forgetting that I was constrained in using many proprietary parts, modifying them as necessary, and also having to get a six foot, 93 kg driver in a ¾ scale car!

A lot of lessons were learnt on the yellow car (but not the one that says to never do this again!) and so the new orange car incorporates all of the lessons learned, making the finished package a really nice looking and well proportioned car, to me at least.

The finishing touch for the body work was to try and source some matching stickers like those on the real Mclaren M8A. It turns out they weren’t that difficult to get, and thanks to the wonder that is eBay, the Goodyear, Gulf and Champion stickers were easily and relatively cheaply sourced from the UK.

The numbers and name stickers, I scaled and had made locally.

You can see on the picture of the 1:18 Mclaren model, I have tried to copy the stickers as best I can.

McArlus, which incidentally is a name made up of the “Mc” in Mclaren, and “Arlus” which was my late brothers’ nickname, takes over from Mclaren. A small kookaburra replaces the NZ kiwi, and of course the names have changed.

I have chosen the number 4 for myself, which was Bruce Mclaren’s number and Ken will have number 5, Denny Hulme’s number.

I’m not sure if this is such a good idea as Denny one more races than anyone in Can Am cars! 

I really happy with the way that it has turned out, what do you think?

Regards

Simon

The new car.

This is what I've chosen to replace the ute.

We went up to Renmark to see it. It belongs for the moment to Peter C. I see he's a Bollyblog follower already. I'm pretty rapt. It's not paid for yet but that's next.

S.U.s. Don't you love 'em?

My Mr. Whippy melted before I made it home.

I was searching around for Romsey Quints' road test of the Cookie Coach. No success. He also did one on a Mr. Whippy van. I did happen to find this though. It was a sculpture at the Sydney Sculptures by the Sea.

Elkhart Lake, an historic weekend.

A street parade almost as good as John Martins' Christmas Pageant. A bit of horsepower here.

Did you see the Zs? And the blue Morgan?

Kapunda - week 30

It's not every day you run into a Cobra replica around here although David out on the Eudunda road has one. Check out the wheels. They're bolt ons but look the part nevertheless. If I were a rich man (didle deidle didle deidle didle doh) I'd have centrelock Halibrands on my Bolwell for sure. I love 'em.

Cars 2

I have a little mate whose mum took him yesterday to see Cars 2 (it's school holidays at the moment). He chose that over the Harry Potter one. Anyway, he came away with the appropriate piece of merchandising, Lightning McQueen.

I can see a bit of Mark 7 in Lightning.

Ross' new Nagari

Well, new to Ross anyway. This is Ross McC's Nagari coupe, B8/92. The photos were taken when it was new in 1973.

If it's not "as new" now I'm sure it will be judging by the Bolwells that emerge from the Healey factory.

McArlus Cars - 27 - body painted and fitted.

In Simon's words....
Inching closer! At least it's looking like a racing car and that's half the battle!

The body work has now been refitted after being painted.

Quite frankly I am ecstatic with the result.

The repairs and modifications have virtually disappeared and the quality of the paint work is better than I hoped for in a race car.

Most of the reassembly was straightforward. The front and rear body sections fell into place easily as did the doors and the engine panels.

The biggest issue was always going to be the windscreen.

I had decided to refit the windscreen temporarily using clecoes to hold it together while a silicon bond was made. I spread plenty of silicon onto the windscreen bracket and clecoed it to the screen. I then fitted the whole assemble to the car body with more clecoes, and plenty of masking tape to prevent a black silicon mess from going all over the newly painted bodywork.

For the first time since I have owned these fantastic tools, all of my clecoes are now back in the box!

The aim at this stage was to get a decent flexible seal between the screen and the bracket as well as holding the whole assembly in place as the silicon cured.

Once the silicon had cured I had intended the pop rivet the screen to the bracket. The first rivet I tried felt painfully difficult to snap, despite having washers on each side, so I decided that there was no way I could risk 30 odd pop rivets without damaging the screen , so I bolted it all together with dome head stainless cap screws.

The whole assembly is then bolted to the bodywork, along with the side scoops and rear engine cover, which also feature matching ss dome head screws.

The mirrors have also been fitted to their stands and to the body, and even when stationary provide a pitiful view out the back!

I guess Bruce Mclaren rarely had to worry who was behind him.

Painted, the whole thing is really falling into place, I think that for the first time there is now light at the end of the tunnel, no longer is it just the Southern Aurora coming the other way!

I’m waiting on a couple of stickers, so the next update will show the car in all it’s livery (and glory).

Regards

Simon

Sports Car nostalgia

King Edward Park, NSW, 1966.
Ron Thorp in the Cobra. Dick Willis in the Milano.

Dick reckons he beat the Cobra that day.