Thursday, January 22, 2009

Mark 5 history

You know me - always chasing up snippets in my quest to discover the history of as many Mark 5s as possible (especially ones with racing history). Well, I was thumbing through some of my old Historic Racing Register newsletters and found this in the November 1982 edition which in those days was edited by Jan and Noel Tuckey. It was the monthly "Driver Profile" and reads like this:- Michael Wright.

A high school teacher, Mike has been working in Grafton for the last ten years, and according to Mike, his interest in cars has been a consuming passion for as long as he can remember. He had "lots of" T series MG's, and then decided to go hillclimbing. Looking for a suitable car, he bought a Mark Five Bolwell, and then heard of another Bolwell that was lying out in the scrub. Hidden under the Bolwell shell was the Jack Robinson Jaguar Special. He bought the car, after haggling about trading an MG TD, and sold the body to begin the restoration.
"Everything was painted Hematite green. Everything", said Mike. "Anything that was painted green we kept, anything that wasn't we threw away. By the time we had finished altering the chassis back to the original dimensions, Rob Rowe arrived, and he straightened out a lot of things for us".
Mike's immediate plans for the car are to rebuild the engine, including a run on the dyno. The car will be campaigned in historic races, and apart from the aluminium body shell, the Jaguar Special is still almost totally original.

There are two Bolwells mentioned here really. Can anybody throw any light?

2 comments:

jed262626 said...

Hello John,
Michael Wright is now a solicitor at Mermaid Beach.
He tells me the Mark V was a roller with Holden diff, front end, steering box but no other mechanicals. The car was sold to Sydney.
The Bolwell body on the Robinson Jaguar (still owned by Tony Beadman in Grafton)was a Mark 7 in perfect condition. It was sold to someone in Musswellbrook or Scone NSW.
If Michael recalls anything else he said he will let me know.
Regards
John Davies

John L said...

That's amazing, John. We are a tight little group aren't we.