Fatty.

I've just been asked to contribute to an article on nutrition and driving enhancement. Just rummaging through some of Phil's photos I reckon I've found the perfect picture of "what not to do if you want to perform well".

Back to the future - well, 2012 anyway.

Some current models that caught my eye Wednesday night.

The GT86. Not a bad looking unit. It seems like value for money. They're not all that expensive, compared with a 370Z, say. They don't have the power of the Z but agile nevertheless. The MX-5 wasn't a ball-tearer straight out of the showroom either but they are still nippy little sporties.

Good to see the MP4-12C up close. My first encounter.

When I first saw this VW Caddy I thought it must have been a service van, but, no, it was an actual entrant. Those blokes must have known something.

Weeksy's truck. This particular model Iveco, the Stralis 355, is imported from Italy, I'm told. So there is no Bolwell input in this one.

Some of the Dattos that were there.

This is interesting. A carbon fibre tailgate and bonnet knocks off 60 kg.

The Goodwin/Brookhouse 240Z

The mighty 510. I was thinking of you, David, at the time.

A couple of local cars.

The fleuros do funny things to hot pink on the Donut Godzilla.

Phil to the rescue.

Some of Phil's pics from Wednesday including a couple of Jim's car.

Next day.

As late as it was most people took their cars home Wednesday night but there was the opportunity to store them there overnight. We took advantage of that offer for the Mark 5 and Peter's Nagari. Many Bolwell people braved the crap weather Thursday morning (and other days for some) to assist on the Gumeracha stage. That afternoon I went to the showgrounds to pick up the yellow car that had slept over with the red one for company.

A damp trip down South Road. How would the Monaro guy have coped?

And safely under cover again.

Prologue night.

Almost a week ago now but last Wednesday night was stage 1 of the Targa Classic Adelaide at the Showgrounds. I don't think anyone expected the 24,000 crowd and it made things difficult getting near the front to take a few action shots. I'm getting a bit old for climbing up the side of the ferris wheel and didn't have the foresight to bring the truck down for standing on. There was a great selection of food vans all with long queues all night. Anyway, we had a display of 9 Bollies there which was a half reasonable number really.

From front to back is Pete S's red Nagari, Pete M's white Mk.7 coupe, Dino's orange Mk.7 roadster and Bill's yellow Mk.5. See the silver 2006 Monaro? The Monaro Club had their display partially out in the weather and it started to look like rain. The owner panicked as it had never experienced a raindrop so we kindly squeezed him in with us where he rubbed and nurtured it for the rest of the night. You can see him in action here.

Looking East towards the hills we have Ron's bronze Mk.7, John H's orange and undercoat Mk.7, Phil's blue one, Scott's Nagari sports with Jim's sports tucked in behind that. Sadly, the individual photo I took of the dark green sports (my all-time favourite) turned out to be of poor quality. Sorry about that.

A collection of V8s with Phil's very smart looking blue Mark 7 in the middle.

The yellow car in the foreground came in for lots of attention and not only for it being the only Bolwell to get a lap of the track.  It's seldom you see a Mark 5 these days and people were intrigued by the big bubble back window. John Veale reminisced about the maroon one that kicked around Adelaide in the 60s (Philip Coulthard). Does anybody know what happened to that? Healey driver, John Rowe, wondered what it was too and I was able to tell him that there's one over his way these days now.

This has turned out to be a very smart motor car. Goodonya Dino.

Finally, the other car in our section, hiding behind the Monaro was the red Plus 8.

Progress on the Mark 4

An update from Stacey

"am progressing with the mk4- have remove a lot of fibreglass that wasnt to well put in- am close to putting in a couple of layers and then redoing the rear frame. have got a mk3 diff housing that is slightly wider track. will then go to the front and redo the front frame and suspension.
Also got the mikuni's running great on the Hunter- Am going to have a go at using the Mikuni's on the Mk4 also"

He loves his Mikunis. Must try them.

Kapunda - week 53

A week ago Friday the Bash cars came through town. They checked in at the Primary School and had to pay a "mining tax" before they could leave.Allen Tiller took some photos and here are a few. If you have been wondering where all the WBs have gone, here's your answer.

There are actually a few WB Statesmans (Statesmen) - (the spell checker likes this better) floating around our town. One is pretty smart looking and used in classic events. If you have 2 clubbies are they clubmen or clubmans? Anyway, back when the big WBs were new in the 80s, Holdens had a small fleet of them complete with uniformed chauffeurs. From time to time they would have to pick up a bigshot executive yank from GM HQ at the airport. These blokes loved them because they were so solidly built compared to the Cadillacs they were used to back home. The doors went clunk and everything. Well, maybe that's why they survive bash events too.

The Dodge Phoenix was fairly popular too.

...and Valiants

plus the odd HK 5 litre

but here's my favourite, the Compact Fairlane.

From the Herald, here's Councillor Robbie in our own home grown entry, a HR wagon. Al's got him baled up and a good thing too.

Is this a Bolwell flight simulator?

Only joking. Grandma would have had much more room in one.

8-Track Cartridges.

Sorry everyone, I've been mostly off the air the last 2 or 3 months. Mainly health reasons but things like the loss of my trusty MacBook, that seems to contain my whole life, hasn't helped either. Anyway, onwards and upwards and I'll try not to have any further lapses.

Remember the 8-track cartridges? In the early 70s people used to rave about them mainly because of their superior sound quality over cassettes.

They took up a fair bit of room in the dash but everyone thought it was worth it.
The cartridge players came in the GT Falcons of the era. Here's an XYGT dash.

This is the inside of a cartridge.

The tape is on a continuous loop, you can see there is only one reel. In the top right corner is the black rubber pinch roller that does all the work.

This is my old shaker GT. I only had a few cartridges so they had to work overtime. They did take up a lot of glovebox space.

God I loved that car. It just seemed so........(searching for a word).........bulletproof. I reckon it shared equal billing with B8/26 that was our other car at the time.