The South-East Flyer

This is the historic racing car Steve is rebuilding. Read all about it in the next edition of Slipstream SA.

Off the air.

I've been off the air for a few days, reason being I haven't been near a computer much (the laptop's still coming). On Thursday Andrew and I set off fairly early to go down to Casterton for the funeral of my long time mate and former business partner, Jim Kelly. Jim was an Austin Healey man to the end. His particular Healey was a reasonably well known Australian special called the MelMac (built and raced by Mel McEwin) and started life as a 100/4 but has a great big Rootes supercharger from a Commer Knocker mounted ahead of the engine with two carbies sitting on top and modified front bodywork. No Robbie, it won't be for sale. Jim has 5 sons and it is their intention to restore the car and keep it in his honour.
I took the photo below to show Chocko, my little chocolate coloured kelpie, where her heritage began, and all my kelpie owning friends can do likewise. On the way home we detoured slightly via Mt. Gambier and called in on Pat and Alec at their heating/cooling shop in Sturt Street. The matt black Mk.7 was tucked away out the back where the big hatchback is undergoing modification and the old VG Valiant ute fuel tank is being replaced with a purpose built aluminium one. This is it in the car and about to be hooked up.

Those who went along last Easter will have seen it but lots haven't - their ceramic reproduction of their car. The guy who does them has a website and I'll see if I can get hold of it and post it in the links. He only charges about $150, I think, for these personalised little beauties. It's plain to see that this is the Hamilton Mk.7 with the correct flares, wheels, front grille, bonnet scoop, door window frames, hatchback hinges, numberplate etc.

Pretty in Orange

Doesn't the new Bolwell orange look great! My favourite colour for a Bolwell.Maybe they've had a premonition that I'm about to win lotto. I'd better buy a ticket.

Easter in the Barossa

For and on behalf of the Bolwell clubs I'm going to outline the program for the Easter weekend. And the reason I'm doing this is to enable or encourage those who are not staying for the whole weekend to come to any of the activities that they may choose. That's why I am including the cost of the various lunches and dinners. If you want to come along to one or more of these activities please let me know so that we can provide for you. My telephone number is 0413 226 009 and my email address is vidstud@gmail.com PROGRAM
Good Friday, 10th April 2009
From 3 pm onwards guests will arrive at the Weintal Resort, Murray Street, Tanunda and the garden and tavern area will be open and licenced from 3 pm to 11 pm for the exclusive use of the Bolwell group with a BBQ taking place in this area.
Saturday, 11th April 2009
At 9 am assemble for a drive to the concours venue. This run will take in many worthwhile spots. The concours is to be held at the National Motor Museum at Birdwood on a nice little patch of grass across the river. There is a hut at this site where we will be having lunch which is provided for us by the FJ Cafe. The lunch cost is $15 per person. Admission to the Exhibition Hall will be provided free to everyone in our group. The "fun run" competition will be on foot in the museum. This will be followed by another "scenic" ride back to the Weintal to get ready for the dinner that night. At 6.30 pm approximately we'll gather for a stroll up the road to the Tanunda Club (now referred to as "the Clubhouse") for the Saturday night dinner - walking distance for most but there are inexpensive minibuses and taxis for the others. This fixed price dinner is $16 per person plus drinks.
Sunday, 12th April 2009
9.30 am drive to the gymkhana site at Nuriootpa. Lunch will be Maggie Beer packs at the gymkhana site. Lunches are $18.50 or $7 for kids. The presentation dinner that night is at the Weintal Resort and the cost for this, outside the package, is $79 and includes 4 hours of drinks or $27.50 for kids with 4 hours of soft drinks.
Monday, 13th April 2009
9.30 am is traditionally farewell time but there is the option of going to the Collingrove Hillclimb for those staying on.

Love the Beast

Haven't seen the movie yet. It comes out on Thursday. I've read a few reviews though. Can't you relate to it? Eric's a bit younger than some of us (OK, I'll speak for myself) but there are quite a few Mark 7 builders going way back, who had the mates around while the car was being built and ended up all feeling they were (and are) part of the car. He'd have been a good Bolwell owner. I guess it's all relative. My youngest son is almost 10 years younger than Eric and when he was building up his rotaries all of his friends were in the shed and part of it. The world continues on, only the cars change. The movie would be a good one to go to as a group. Unfortunately the previews finished yesterday. Eric used to be over for the Classic Adelaide a few times, the last couple driving a Porsche 944. That Falcon used to be white. Below is the photo Eric submitted for the entry book for the 2002 Classic.

Escort RS2000

Again from Matt J:-
I thought you may like to see the injection manifold, etc that George built for my RS2000 coupe. It was George that pushed me this way and I am really happy with everything he did including injection, Wolf computer, narrowed disc brake limited slip Borg Warner, Wilwood 4 spot brakes etc, etc. I have attached a pic of the of the engine bay.......looks nice and tidy with the injectors hidden underneath and 4 coils and 4 ignitors hidden under dash. George did away with the distributor and set up a crank angle sensor instead.....have I mentioned how good he is???? Also I greatly appreciated the time he took to iron out the 'bugs' once the car was trimmed and completed (bugs were in my work...not his!)

Lebanon's first supercar.

From what I can see it is the first car maker of any kind in Lebanon. A 25 year old design student, David Frem, has produced the Frem F1 and he plans to go places with it. He appears very proud of himself and rightly so too.

At present it is powered by a VW 2-litre with an Audi 6-speed trans. Take a look at:-

dilidoo.com/2009/02/13/the_first_lebanese_super_car_ifrem-f1_22_pics.html

Another Bolwell magazine article.

This is the latest Australian Classic Car magazine, March 2009, on your news stands now. In it is a four page article on production of the 2009 Nagari.

B8/44

Peter G found this ad in the November 1999 edition of Motorsport (UK). It is B8/44. This car has never had an Australian history. It was delivered new to a South African buyer. How it came to turn up in England I'm not sure. Anyway, these days it lives in Europe, and races mainly in Germany.

I googled the car's Belgian sponsor and found an interesting website - www.mustanggarage.be

Couldn't find anything about Bolwells though.

Vitaloni exterior mirrors

Peter G sent this cutout. Appropriate door mirrors are often asked about. A quick Google of Vitaloni reveals a number of places around the world that do mail order.

Also revealed was an American company called Interpart that had admitted at a court action that they had copied Vitaloni's mirrors but I haven't been able to find any reference to Interpart Corporation that is later than 1977.

MJ's tail-lights

Hi John,

I read a comment asking about what taillights I will be using. As I like to be different, I have tried to make them different to any I have seen.......I do not like the screw holes in the plastic chrome surrounds, so George offered to turn up new alloy ones on the lathe. Also I will get him to weld the bolt threads to the back to do away with the holes for fitting.

Cheers, Matt.

Matt's chassis (with diversions)

Matt sent this further 2 or 3 paragraphs on his car build a couple of days ago which I could have posted yesterday (Saturday) except that Jane and I went to a wedding (Monika and Matthew) in a little town on the road to nowhere called Sedan. Well, come to think of it, it's on the road to Swan Reach. It is however, only about an hour's drive from Kapunda so that's a plus. Monika is Jane's second cousin and Matthew is a former banana bender (still drinks XXXX). XXXX has that name because Queenslanders had trouble spelling beer, I'm told. Anyway, there was a very large contingent of sunshine-staters over for the wedding and with no accommodation in Sedan, they all stayed in Tanunda. From there they hired a bus to go to the wedding and all at once this bus load of rabblers rolled into town. Anyway, we all had a great celebration in the Sedan pub and that's why there wasn't a blog post yesterday. Among the bananaeaters were Peter and Anna Kordic. Peter is a close friend of Reg James who is the partner of the groom's Mum, Margaret. Peter is desperately trying to get his Mark 7 completed for Easter (the same Mk.7 that's been mentioned lately as a forerunner to Matt Jenkins' wellbuilt chassis). Reg runs a red XU1 in historic events along with Nagari owner John Davies, including Speed-on-Tweed, Mt. Cotton, Leyburn Sprints etc. It was good to hear about the up-coming Mt. Coot-tha hillclimb and I wish I could be there. I would expect that the raising of the roof of Matt Jenkins' car was also inspired by Peter's Bolwell. Peter bought his from Richard Windham and I'm witness to that car not only having the roof raised, but the floor lowered as well, Richard being "six foot six in his socks". Richard and Deidre had been telling me about the work going into the Mark 7 by the new owner and here it is, we've even seen a couple of photos of the chassis now. With Peter using the V8, the Holden 6s have gone to Reg for the XU1s. We're a close-knit little bunch aren't we. Anyhow, I've digressed for long enough now........

From Matt comes:-
"The 2 pics of the chassis from Sam are of a different chassis that George modified for a customer about 18 months ago. That chassis is different to mine and the car is very nice, but George and I learnt a lot from it and based the design of my chassis around the problems encountered with the one in those pictures. Luckily, we started building my chassis the week before the other left, so it was a great reference point to build mine next to. For example, the chassis needed to be cut away to allow for the rear sparkplugs. I think the engine also needs to be jacked up to remove plugs. Also,the engine must come out to get the gearbox out. (notice the removable underbelly of my chassis using rivnuts to allow the box to drop out the bottom). My engine and box are mounted by 3 bolts only. Also my chassis rails have extra bends to go around the heads and allow easy access to plugs and then the the rails hug the T5 to give the driver an extra 50mm of leg room width (tunnel is now 100mm narrower). This as you would know, makes a huge difference to the very small leg room allowance. This allowed me to cut the seats and widen them 40mm (they looked lost in the now spacious interior!)
We also took the opportunity to set up the coilover Jag rear with 6 different positions of adjustment. This combined with the coilover height and firm adjustment to get the rear geometry just right for the driving conditions (I like to visit Queensland Raceway with George and I plan to take the Mk7 at any opportunity!)"

Click on this last picture of the tyre to blow it up. It looks great.