Based in the Victorian beachside suburb of Mordialloc, Bolwell has produced some exciting and innovative in limited numbers since the 1960s.
Founded by Campbell Bolwell, the company may not produce sports cars currently, but its continued innovation in fibreglass ensured it still remains today.
Bolwell’s experimentation with fibreglass started at 15 when his brother Graeme took his 1937 Ford for a drive through the forest damaging the bodywork significantly. In turn, Bolwell replaced the panels with moulded fibreglass items and thus began his fascination with the material termed as ‘new technology’ back then.
By 1962, Bolwell had made his hobby building custom sports cars into a business, with the fourth itineration of his design selling more than 200 units as it produced 800 in total across five different models.
Selling sports cars in both kit and fully assembled form, Bolwell’s designs featured extravagant items such as gull wing doors, but the best known model was the original Nagari of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The aboriginal word for ‘flowing’, the Nagari was the first full production model of 100 coupes and 18 convertibles. Powered by either Ford’s 302 or 351 ci V8, inside a 920kg, 2280mm wheelbase, backbone chassis ensuring a quick package.
The Nagari was a success on the race tracks during the 1970s in the Australian Sports Car Championship particularly with John Latham, John Gourlay, Ross Bond, Steve Webb and Peter Warren, who won the 1975 Australian Tourist Trophy in the model. Competition chiefly from Porsche prevented the Nagari from sealing the title.
The dawn of the 1980s welcomed a change of design for Bolwell as the Ikara was released featuring a 1600cc powerplant from the Volkswagen Golf and a four-speed gearbox. Just 12 were produced with nine surviving to this day. Peter Wherrett even tested one on Torque.
More than 20 years since the Ikara, Bolwell declared its intention to build a modern version of the Nagari featuring a tweaked 3.5-litre V6 engine sourced from Toyota in either naturally aspirated or supercharged form. Priced between $150,000 and $260,000, only three cars were completed out of an original five slated.
Another new Bolwell was destined to be produced featuring a mid-mounted 6.2-litre V8 expected to produce 500hp in 2019, but there has been no further news been released.
Outside of its sports car designs, Bolwell is much respected for its work in fibreglass including working alongside CAT, Kenworth, Mack, Schneider Electrical, Downer, Thales and Iveco just to name a few as well as into producing caravans.