Monday, September 17, 2012

Another "Where is it now?"

You may recall we traced the history of the Milano GT that Dick Willis built and owned twice (and is now for sale in the Albury/Wodonga area). One of the former owners was a South Australian, Bevan Hill, who crashed it rather badly at Mallala. Well, Bevan (with an "a") is an old mate of Beven (with an "e"). Beven discovered that Bevan, when he was in the Navy and stationed in Perth, owned and drove a Bolwell Mk.7 and asked if he knew which one. BevAn isn't sure, but here are some of his recollections.

"Remembered items.

The car was "burnt orange" colour.  Holden 6 cylinder motor. 

At the time, it was professionally finished inside.  Excellent seats, proper floor carpets, good trim around the transmission tunnel, etc. 

The windows only wound down about half way, and as a result, it got quite hot inside in a WA summer.  I had organised for an air conditioner to be fitted to it, but I got moved to Canberra before I had it done.  I believe the new owner did get it installed at the arranged supplier after he purchased it.  The supplier was the chief mechanic at the BP garage on the south west side of the Canning Highway at Palmyra.  Sorry that I cannot remember his name.  However, I would guess that very few Bolwell's of that time had a/c, so this might be a clue. 

The rego number was UZK-161.  Possibly a clue there.

I owned it from about Nov 1974 till Jul or Aug 1976.  My understanding was that the builder (the only previous owner, sorry I cannot remember his name) had only used it as a weekend drive.  I drove it to work (about 5 km) only in good weather, and we also used it mostly for day trips, down to Serpentine Falls, or Mandurah, or such (Note Mandurah was a smelly stinky little fishing village then; it is now a bustling tourist and boating city of at least 75,000).  When the baby came along, it really was pretty useless, even though we did put the bassinet in the back a couple of times (this would just not be acceptable now), and when I got posted to Canberra, then it really had to go.

Sorry, I don't have any photos.  They have disappeared in one of the 13 moves we had in the Navy after we left WA.

That's about it.  I hope it is of some use.

Cheers,
Bevan "

Now for the Sand Gropers to go to work.

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