Book review: Bolwell, An Australian Icon

An edition of famed American magazine, Car & Driver featured a side profile photo of a very sleek looking Italianesque coupe back about 50 years ago.

The article began with the words "Like it?" before revealing that the car in question was a 'Bolwell' from Australia – a fibreglass-bodied vehicle named the Mk7, powered by a Holden six-cylinder.

Bolwell was not at that time well-known outside the Australian automotive industry, but today it's an important supplier to Kenworth Trucks and has had business interests in areas as divergent as caravans, scooters, flight simulators, wind turbines, marine fixtures and McDonalds fast-food furnishings. Key to the company's survival over the years has been its flexibility and a willingness to reinvent itself at intervals.

In a new book co-authored by noted motoring writer and former editor of Sports Car World, Rob Luck, the full history of the tiny company is laid bare, including the highly prized sports cars that were the company's first foray into fibreglass production. The company's history up to 1974 is likely to be of most interest to car enthusiasts who recall the V8-engined (Mk8) Nagari and the Mk7 that preceded it. This history occupies the first half of the book, and there's a compendious selection of cars at the end of the book, listing chassis numbers, modifications and – in some cases – the histories of each with various owners.

The quirky Ikara of the late 1970s gets its own chapter in the book, a chapter earned for the Golf-powered sports car's part in landing the contract work with Kenworth that has kept the company afloat ever since. As many will know, Bolwell has also returned to building sports cars with its Mk10 Nagari, but numbers built to date are very few. There's nothing new in that however, Bolwell's sports-car output since 1962 is only about 800 cars. Many have been written-off and sometimes rebodied from coupe to convertible, as the book reveals. Working out precise numbers built is near impossible, due to the record-keeping of the time and cars built by other firms using Bolwell's own moulds after Bolwell officially ceased production.

And the early cars rarely conformed to one 'standard' design. Cars could be powered by engines as different as four-cylinder 'Kent' engines from the Ford Cortina or a 4.4-litre V8 from the Leyland P76. The four-cylinder from the Hillman Imp, Holden's 186CID six-cylinder and Ford's Windsor and Cleveland V8s have all provided motive power for Bolwell sports cars at one time or another.

All of this is outlined in the book, along with extensive accounts of Bolwell's motorsport legacy and anecdotes such as the candid observation that building a Mk5 Bolwell 'was never in truth a task for the faint-hearted'.

Chapters of the book devoted to Bolwell's corporate history as a supplier of quality fibreglass components to both Kenworth and Iveco (as well as other industries) will be heavy going for some readers, but they do provide a full explanation of what it takes to keep a business trading, how to keep track of your earnings and expenditure, whom to recruit and why – and how to make stuff out of fibreglass.

If the middle section of the book is a little dry for car enthusiasts, the opening chapters err on the side of partisan, but those reading this book are likely to share the authors' passion for the brand.

There are some minor production issues that detract from the book. Captioning is absent at times when it would be useful to identify subjects appearing in photos, and the text is often a fine, white typeface that can be difficult to read on any background other than black. There are a few editing and typesetting errors in the text, including vehicle weights in pounds rendered with a currency sign ('£') rather than the 'lb' abbreviation. And for those not well versed in imperial measurements, metric equivalents (to 'cwt', for example), would be welcome.

On the plus side, the book is densely packed with accurate information and the images are carefully selected and laid out for visual impact. An elegant sans serif font is reasonably easy to read and the hard-cover publication is printed on a heavier paper stock in a satin-style finish, ideal for a low-volume collector's edition such as this.

As a history of the brand – and the cars in particular – the book is an essential addition to the enthusiast's library and retails for $120, plus $25 for postage.

The first 10 motoring.com.au readers to place an order for 'Bolwell, An Australian Icon' will receive a copy signed by the authors. Payment by PayPal should be marked 'Carsales'.