B8/5

B8/5 was the first Nagari I had ever seen. It appeared in Adelaide early in 1970. At the time there were 3 Mark 5s and at least twice as many Mk.7s. Just about all of these cars were built by their owners and a factory built car was unimaginable. The SA Bolwell club didn't come until 2 years later. By then we were quite familiar with the Nagari because a dealer was established and our early meetings were held at the dealership, which happned to be Daryl Siggs' Shell Service Station on Grange Road. Meetings were conducted in the lube bay, often with a Nagari on the hoist and we sat around on oil drums underneath.

Anyway, in 1970, I was working for the Motor Vehicles Department and its one and only office (no branches had been established then I'm pretty sure) was in the Railway Building next to Parliament House. (When we moved out of there the tenancy was taken over by another den of iniquity - The Adelaide Casino). Part of my job as an assessor was to establish standards for new vehicles to enable subsequent similar vehicles to sail through the registration process with a minimum of fuss. I can assure you that my bosses didn't think this Nagari thing would catch on and I'm sure they couldn't erase the mind-set that associated Bolwell with one-off kit cars, so it took a second one to appear in SA before we got around to weighing one and establishing all the other criteria. Incidentally, RAC horsepower ratings were some strange calculations that took into account bore diameter and number of cylinders and divide by the number you first thought of but the length of the stroke was not considered. Well, to cut a long story short, which I don't seem to be good at, one day this orangeish-red Nagari coupe turned up out the front for its Police inspection. This inspection was required because the car had come from Victoria on a permit and involved looking at the engine number and seeing if it appeared on a list of not yet recovered stolen vehicles, nothing more, nothing less. You can't be too sure about those crooks over the border. As I am very good at digressing, I'll do it one more time. I had a police inspection for one of my own Nagaris a few years later. The policeman assigned to this job had been in the force for a long time and he hadn't caught too many bank robbers lately so they gave him a clipboard and a pencil and a white lab coat (he looked just like a goal umpire before they tricked them up with colourful shirts) and off he set to demand visitors to the MVD (it became MRD later) to raise their bonnets so that he could do his stuff, i.e. look for engine numbers. His other tools of trade were a torch and a magnifying glass. Anyhow, I had bought this nice deep yellow Nagari in Melbourne (no.26) and of course it needed to have its inspection. Now the Ford Motor Company issued a special set of numbers (with the prefix A1E) to all of the engines that were off the shelf and supplied to outside customers, e.g. not destined for their own vehicles. For some reason they stamped this number underneath, on the lip where the bell housing bolts on. I explained this to our friendly policeman who wasn't prepared to believe me. Besides, he wasn't getting down on the ground to get his white dustcoat dirty for anybody. So I lifted the bonnet and he went about his work poking his torch into all the nooks and crannies, but to no avail. This one had him really stumped. His decision was that I should go away and find the engine number in my own time instead of wasting his and come back when I had found it. Tony Cullen had an engraving tool at his workshop in Blackwood so I went up there and we engraved the appropriate engine number in about eight different places. Back I went for my second inspection and this time he found one of the eight or so engine numbers. His comment was "I can't believe I missed that last time, I'm usually pretty good at finding them". I just remembered his first name was Russell. My son had little Jack Russell called Russell and he was an angry little terrier too. I must remember to ask John Davies if the car still has the original engine whether he has seen the engine number in more than one place. Getting back to B8/5, it turned up out the front as I said, and when I heard about it I raced downstairs with this crappy old camera that I kept in my top drawer for such an occasion and snapped off a picture.
It was an amazing site and you can see the driver of the Valiant taxi is amazed too. The car was so new that the side windows were fixed one piece jobs like the ones on the drag car in a recent post. You can also see te early Nagari mags that had alloy centres but steel rims. The car was purchased new from Bolwell Cars, Seaford, Victoria by Michael Kuhn, a builder from Plympton.
A year later, in 1971, Michael and the Bolwell moved to Darwin as the building industry was booming there by then. By 1979 it had found its way to Melbourne and in that year it was purchased from a Melbourne car yard by Bob and Kerryn Hampton of Emerald. They used this car for many years, only selling it to buy the Howard Ellis yellow sports. Later, Bob and Kerryn moved to the Gold Coast taking the yellow convertible with them. I really don't know much about the ownership of B8/5 after the Hamptons but it did go to NSW and a subsequent owner was Craig Wade. It is now owned by NSW member, Gordon Ross and here are a few pictures of it at a club event up there.

As you can see, it has a very distinctive bonnet bulge. I'm not sure I've seen another one like it.
It has also gained some new wheels. Most people would say thank goodness because those very early Nagari wheels were a bit of a worry. However, if anyone has any of them laying around, I might be interested in purchasing them, especially if the price was something like what an old pensioner like myself could afford. Talking about Nagari wheels, I remember Peter G saying the other day that the Commonwealth Aircraft Factory made them for Bolwell. Well, a long time ago, I was at a place called J. Swift Diecasters Pty. Ltd. on Ferntree Gully Road, Clayton North who offered me the dies for the one piece Nagari wheels. They were way down the back, out in the weather, and had been for many years. Unfortunately they were beyond redemption, otherwise I would have bought them on the spot.

Unabashed Gearhead Gnarliness

B8/27

This car started life as a drag car. It was powered by a 426 cu. in. Chrysler Hemi (check the number plate). Also check the rear wheels and wheel arches. While you are at it note the door windows. They are fixed perspex units with no quarter windows. Actually the very first Nagaris produced had fixed one piece windows while they developed their winder mechanism but not as late as no. 27. This is the John Hartney dragster. John is the first owner and the present owner with Graeme Lang owning it in between.

This black and white picture is from a Custom Rodder magazine showing the car at the 1972 Melbourne Hot Rod Show.

These last pictures were taken at the 1989 Victorian branch Show 'n' Tell and as you can see they show the car reverting back to something standard. The Hemi has gone too. I shouldn't say "reverting back" because the car started life in that radical form. From my own point of view, if I wanted to wake up that debate on the integrity of standard cars, I think that the car has a history of its own in that drag car format and that history has now been lost. It's the same as the 3 six-cylinder Nagaris and the four-cylinder one, they have all been changed to 302 V8s. Anyway it is good to see John reunited with his old car. Did you get that Mk.7, John?

More Mark 4s.

Well, we've talked about the Mk.4A and the Mk.4B, here's a more unusual one, the Mk.4C. There's only one of these and its most significant difference is that it's rear engined, Hillman Imp in fact. The Hillman Imp engine and gearbox was a great little set-up even in Hillman Imps. Norm Beechey used to hillclimb one when they were new and it was a rocketship. So think how it would go in a Mk.4 Bolwell. Click on comments to comment on this great little car.

Laro sees sun for the first time.

Off To AusComposites for a Digital Examination. Spycam!!

The body will be digitally recorded into "Rhino" program and smoothed/made symmetrical on computer before final shaping on their machining centre.

They have just installed the machine and the Laro is their first job.

AusComposites will be machining bucks/moulds straight off computer images for outside customers. Anything is possible - 10m boats, planes, CARS, widgets etc.

I think it's very exciting that such a progressive company is local. Anyone who wants to find out what's possible should call Serge or Sarah on (08)8329 9900. They are keen to show what they can do.


We wish they were up and running 12 months ago! Better late than never and anyway, others can benefit from knowing an Adelaide company has this capacity.

I can think of a few MK.7 builders that could have done with this. Imagine the right hand side being symmetrical with the left hand side!

It must be Mark 4 week!

Everybody knows that Mark 4s were designed for 4 cylinder engines. In their day, the 4 cyl. Ford (Cortina type) was the most popular (although I can think of 2 or 3 Peugeot examples) followed later by the trusty Corolla powerplant. Here's a couple powered with something near and dear to my heart, the good old Holden grey motor. Just look at the power bulges necessary to fit them in.This one is the famous Mark 4 of Peter Mahoney, one of the very first Bolwells to take to the racetrack. It is still racing in Historic events even now although mainly driven by Peter's son.

This red one was powered by a 6-cylinder grey motor too and at the time was owned by Roger Boylan. Subsequent owners were Ken Stratton and Roger Trethewey and it is now being rebuilt by hill-climber Alan Foster although the six cylinder is long gone.

The opposite extreme is the fitting of a rotary. You've really got to look hard to find the engine, yet this is the way to get the most power of all.

Getting back to the grey motor, that's what lived in my Mark 5. For a very short period in its life it had a Repco cross-flow head fitted that I had picked up from Dean Qualmann who used to build grey motors for speedway. Apart from the power it produced, I used to like just lifting the bonnet and looking at it. One of my deepest regrets is my impulsiveness in sending it over to the Bendigo Swap Meet when I had a touch of the shorts. Naturally it was snapped up. I'll never see one of those again I'm willing to bet.

Laro news

This is how the Laro looks after this weekend just gone.

What does everybody think?

Victorian Historic Racing Register

You might notice a new entry in the links column - the VHRR. It is certainly worth a look from time to time. Especially the photo pages. Right now there are some excellent shots of club members Trevor Lambert and Ken Messenger competing at the Mallala Easter historic meeting in their Elfin and DB3S replica respectively. Also in the pictures of the recent Phillip Island historic racing extravaganza is a great one of Mark Wells in his Mk.7 convertible as well as the Veskanda and the Lambert Elfin.

Dinky

Remember Dinky? Dinky started life as one of the rare Mk.4 coupes. There were a few of them, I remember a Peugeot powered one getting around Sydney. Anyway, this one lived in Northcote, Melbourne and in the hands of Peter and Judith Jones attended everything Bolwell that was going in the seventies. Funny looking things the coupes with their gull-wing doors. This is what happens when you make a hardtop out of what was designed as a roadster. Garrie Cooper did the same thing with a one-off coupe version of the Elfin Mallala which became a rather famous racer and I'm sure was at the recent Phillip Island historic meeting. Peter used Dinky in this guise in competition and on the road for a very long time.
From where I don't know, he acquired a Mk.4B body and below is how Dinky turned out to be in the end.
This photo below is that very body sitting on a trailer in a backyard in suburban Adelaide where it was taken to flop a mould before the Dinky rebuild took place. Lots of procrastination eventuated and eventually the body was called back to Melbourne before the moulds were made.
Peter did get to use Dinky in its new form but died at an age too young to be fair quite a few years back now.

Mk.4A vs. Mk.4B

About a month ago I happened to mention here that I preferred the look of the 4B to the 4A. A few people have asked me why, so here's a couple of shots, one of each, tell me which you prefer. I guess it's a matter of taste. This is Ray Johnstone racing his Mk.4A at Calder way back in the 60s, maybe early 70s. I've heard it said that a 4A looks like a blanket thrown over four wheels. I've got a shot of "Dinky" (remember her?) which exemplifies that more and I'll show it to you in my next post.
This is a body out of the Mk.4B mould. This is the car that the late Werner Rodkin used for hillclimbs and now resides in Europe. Do you know how it got to be over there? Well, a German couple entered their exotic sports car (I forget now what it was) in the Targa Tasmania one year and when they arrived to compete found that their car was still on the high seas so they bought this little car which just happened to be on the market at the time so that they didn't waste their entry. After the Targa they decided they liked the car so much they took it home with them.

Anyway, the 4A and the 4B do look different. Which do you prefer?

Cookie Coaches

Remember the Cookie Coach? Bolwell made a batch of them (funny word "batch" - sounds like they made a batch of cookies) for the "Cookie Coach Company". This was a franchise operation that had people buying these vans and access to daily baked cookies and they had to go around the streets flogging them. The idea finally disappeared up its own bum, just like Mr. Whippy vans, and the second-hand vans turned up in all sorts of places around the country mainly as promotional vehicles. The one in the first three photos is on Hamilton Island and the other one used to be a means of selling jewellery at Royal Shows.


Smiths Potato Chips have one and Pete Garvin sent me some photos of a couple that are used for home deliveries of Big Macs and owned by a Melbourne suburban McDonalds outlet. I once knew of a radio station that had one. Sportscar lovers say they are not real Bolwells but there is an oval shaped, brass coloured "Bolwell" badge on the front for all to see. The purists then say that they are still not Bolwells because they only built the body and not the chassis. These bodies were mounted on commercial versions of Suzuki or Daihatsu chassis. Anyway I think they are Bolwells and I've always wanted one. Pete calls them the Mark Nine-and-a-half. They appeared between the Mk.9 Ikara and the Mk.10 Nagari. I know of one languishing in a warehouse but I've never had the available funds to make them a decent offer. I did respond to an ad. for one in Unique Cars once. It turned out to be a pirate job. Ther's one for the original vs. replica debate.

"Spy Cam" - Laro

Well, here it is.....
You can get some idea of how it is going to look. These are getting to be old photos really as it has progressed relatively fast of late and looks even better now. Basically these are photos of the buck. The buck and sub-frame are about to come off the chassis to be detailed for moulds. The chassis is complete under there somewhere(!), ready for finish/weld/seal/paint and assembly.

Whilst it is still a relatively small car (4.15m long X 1.86m wide X 1.27m high) the cabin is large. Simon's human test dummy @ 6 ft 3" & 135 kg. can get in and out easily and the seat is not adjusted all the way back for his driving position. I must say that it is the easiest car for me to get into and out of as well and I feel very comfortable in the driver's seat.

In Simon's words it is not a race car on the road. e.g. it will ride smoothly, have provision for "thickshake drink holders", secure storage in cab for laptop, handbag(s), camera etc. Also 2 full size golf bags and 2 medium suitcases, 2 toilet bags and some miscellaneous soft stuff in the boot, plus a full size spare and 75 litres of fuel.

With LS2 etc. it will be a useful split-personality, ie 0-100 in sub 5s for 20% of its life but will take off in 2nd, shift to 6th and keep up with the traffic for the (realistically) largest part of its life (without alarming any of the faint-hearted who may be present!).

Chassis torsional rigidity is over 30,000Nm per degree.
Simon reckons if it rattles, knocks, squeeks, shimmies or bump steers in any way he will burn it to the ground! I don't think there will be any fear of that.
We'll see soon enough.
Comments are encouraged. Just click on the word "comments".