Short notice.

A few people have been in touch with me by telephone and email about a tribute to Tony. Generally thoughts have centred around discussion at the SA meeting on Tuesday night - which I'm sure we'll still do but I did want to point out that the funeral is before that (Tuesday morning).

white Mark 7 for sale

Peter G's mate, Allan, plans to sell his Mark 7. It is #315 and was previously owned by Colin McAlister. Here's a couple of shots of it. You can contact Peter with any interest.

Archives

When Peter Marr closed down his website it worried me that so much good information, especially in clever tips on building and improving Mark 7s and Nagaris, could be lost forever. Now, with a little bit of help from my friends (well, a big bit really), we have available an archive website of unlimited capacity and duration. The first thing to go on it will be Peter's material, he has just sent me a disc. Beven began placing a few old Slipstreams on a website but it runs out of room quickly. There will be virtually no limit to the size of this archive so we could put all of the Slipstreams on it. I often think how useful some of those old "Bolly Doctor" articles would be. It's unlimited what information could go on it without the worry of expiry dates. Even some of these blog posts are worth keeping in my opinion and even though Google seem to be good to me, I don't have any ads on the blog and I would hate to see the old posts dropping off the end. The domain is registered. It is called "Goldfields Motor Museum". A specific inbox is about to be set up that will take the large files for any stuff people want archived. A young man in Melbourne (the son of a member) is doing a website (f.o.c.) that will provide a landing page and index for visitors to go to their choice of topics once we have them. All people have to do is email their files to the email address (TBA) and we will upload them. At a later date we may get registration facilities and emails so we can send out news when new archives are added.

Just flicking through some really old Slipstreams last night I came across this old "Bolly Doctor" with instructions for removing a Mk.7 body. Might be useful for Graeme and his friends up in Brisbane. You need a few friends when you do this.

"The Beast"

This is not to be confused with another well known Mk7Chev that we used to refer to as "Docker's Beast". I have been asked many times today if I have any photos of "The Beast". Tony didn't because most of his photo albums went in the bushfire. I'm sure someone out there has some. Anyway, here's a couple. The first one is when it was a black coupe, posing with Garry's Nagari. The second is as a blue convertible. Note the tail-lights Chris.

Farewell Tony.

Most who know Bolwells know Tony Opie. Tony passed away a couple of hours ago and I feel really awful. That's fairly selfish of me I guess. How must his family and really close friends be feeling? I've given up getting angry about people with everything to live for going before their time but it does get hard to take. Tony himself has been saying you just play the cards you are dealt. Well, that's true, but gee, a devoted wife, the loveliest little ten-year-old daughter, a Nagari to build........... I know what Tony reckons we all have to do, go down to the Tonsley and have a beer and a laugh about all the fun times way back when. As you all know Tony had that ever changing Mark 7 called The Beast which, in its most memorable form was a roadster with a big Chev in it. A couple of years ago it was completely destroyed along with his Mark 5 in a bushfire that went through their property at Kangarilla. Lots of people will recall this little episode on the edge of the Murray at Renmark, 22 years ago. R.I.P.

Leyburn entry list

Here it is. You know the drill. Click to enlarge.

Leyburn is coming.

The Leyburn Sprints are coming up on August 15th & 16th. John Davies has his entry confirmed. He comments that the entry list is interesting as in addition to B8/26, there is the Peter Kordic Mark 7, the 2 Hinton Milanos, John Goodwin's Milano (no, not the Bolwell John Goodwin), Whelan's Fairthorpe Electron Minor, Bevan Batham's genuine 1962 Elfin Mallala and Centaurs, about 8 Ford V8 side valve specials and of course many of John's MGCCQ friends in their various interesting cars. There's lots of other very interesting entries too. I now know where all of the XYGTs have gone although how many are genuine I'm not sure. I'll post the list shortly, as soon as this computer starts to behave itself again.

A pictorial history of B8/46 - part 3.

When CAMS in their wisdom decided to allocate the Australian Sports Car Championship to a different branch of sports car racing, it left a large number of people with huge investments in their cars with nowhere to race except in insignificant club events. Barry decided to put his car on the market but for the above reason, buyers were a bit thin on the ground. Eventually he decided to dismantle it and sell the bits. Naturally, after all those years of racing, the chassis was well sorted and developed and Rob Luck bought it to form the basis of his concept car (below).

The body went to become part of the Holden V8 powered car built by John Van Wokum. I don't know John personally, it's a fact of life that you can't know everybody, and I've seen his last name spelt in a variety of ways, so, in advance, I'm making my apology for possible bad spelling. I believe John is one of those Bolwell stalwarts from way back because his name crops up from time to time in conversations about Mark 4s and Mark 7s.

Anyway, he built this rather different looking Nagari with very substantial "T" roof and flat side glass.

Many years later the car turned up in Western Australia in rather poor condition I'm told. A very impressive restoration job has been done on it as you can see from these two photographs below.

Found another Mark 5

Ages ago Trevor alerted us to a rumour of a Mark 5 in Roxby Downs. Recently, when I asked him about it, he couldn't remember who had told him about it, let alone any details. Usually these leads come to nothing (I just about turned Narranderah upside down to no avail after Col Watson was told about a Mark 5 in that town, for example - and I can tell you about a few others). Anyway, a very old friend, Ray Goldie, runs the newspaper in Roxby Downs, "The Monitor". I asked him if he knew of a Mark 5 Bolwell in Roxby. He didn't even know what a Bolwell was (he does now!). Anyway, he offered to ask around via the newspaper. I sent him a photo of Bill's yellow Mark 5 (complete with plastic plate and tennis ball on the bonnet - you know the one) and he wrote a great little article about Mark 5s (obviously some homework was done). A couple of days after publication, while I was out feeding the chooks, I get a telephone call from John Webber of Roxby Downs, proud owner of a Mark 5 Bolwell. He wants to come down to Adelaide to a club meeting and to see a restored and complete Mk.5. He has problems with a rusty old chassis, a common Mark 5 complaint, and we might be able to help him with that or at least join him in grumbling about it. Isn't all that amazing! Some of us thought we may have uncovered one of the lost SA Mark 5s, but no, this one came from Tasmania. Anyway, thank you Ray, a great outcome.

A pictorial history of B8/46 - part 2

In 1977 AIR had a round of the Australian Sports Car Championship and the big black Bolwell was one of four (and the highest placed) Nagaris at the event. Allan Hanns was still in his Datsun and Robbie Rowlands was still in a Healey then. Another big black car was Rusty French's Pantera (still no match for the Allan Hamilton Porsche).

Here's a few Nagaris in the pits and among the people here are Beven, Barry's bum, Tim Sherman, Maryanne Van Elsen, Bobbie Gay and Bruce Tonkin.Some time later Barry picked up a reasonably substantial sponsorship package from Brian Wood Ford hence the change of colour scheme to that beautiful blue with the red and yellow stripes, just like Murray Carter's Falcon. The Bridge Hotel was Barry's pub at Werribee and that's Barry's off-sider, Norm Hamilton giving him some last-minute instructions.

The sponsorship didn't go as far as getting the Bolwell into this snazzy transporter but the grandstand on top was pretty nice.

Finally, here's one of B8/46 at Baskerville after an allmighty spin and stall.

A pictorial history of B8/46 part 1

This is where it all began, it was raced for some years, mainly in Sydney by motor dealer, Peter Warren, seen here at Oran Park in 1974. There were a few Nagaris racing up that way and names like Webb, Bond, Clearihan, Donnelly and Ullrich come to mind.

Some years later, when Peter went on to other things, Barry Main purchased the car and it moved South where in Victoria competed with the Nagaris of Gourlay, Edwards and Latham among other interesting sports cars. From time to time, Barry and his friends used to come over to SA to get a bit more racing. Here he is (no.33) on a start grid at AIR. The other cars in the picture are the red Nagari of Bernie Van Elsen, the white Mark 7 of Murray Willmott, John Veale's Austin Healey and Peter Smeets' Sprite.Probably the same meeting, Mike Finnis in the E-type is seen here giving Barry a bit of a hurry-up. Michael was a pretty hard punter, later going on to race the ex-Latham Porsche.

In the pits at AIR. Sharing the same bedroom with B8/46 is B8/26 and the sensationally quick Motorlab Asp of Jim Doig. I included this photo because of the familiar faces of Beven Young, Alwyn Harris (well, the back of his head) and Garry and Rosemary Warren.

And this is a youthful looking Barry, same pits, different occasion.

This is how I'd like to be.

Just have a look at Kevin with his Model A based racer telling some young blokes what it's all about. That car goes like the clappers and it and Kevin have been at it for donkeys years. No signs of either giving up.

I'd like to be doing that when I'm his age or older. I'm younger than him you see.