Born-again Bolwell Has Fans In A Flutter
Newcastle Herald
Saturday November 15, 2008
A FEW decades past, the true believers among Australian car enthusiasts wanted something supremely special - a homegrown supercar.
Sure, they loved their Falcon GTHOs, their Torana XU1s and their Charger R/Ts but they truly desired the rare Bolwell Nagari, a two-door coupe (or the even more rare soft top) made from fibreglass and mounted on a backbone chassis, 5.0 litre Ford V8 engine up front, four-speed transmission behind, drive to the rear wheels and more credibility in the package than most people thought possible.Sadly, the Nagari died a slow death brought about by high prices in Australia and increasingly tough safety and emissions laws. Almost four decades on and a new Nagari has emerged and, after being shown off at both the Melbourne and Sydney motor shows, has been confirmed for production with the first batch of customer cars already being built at the company's Melbourne headquarters.There are no fire-breathing V8s this time around, no backbone chassis' and no fibreglass bodywork.Instead this new car is built using a carbon fibre-based unitary chassis with front and rear subframes.The engine is now a supercharged Toyota V6 tuned to deliver 220 kilowatts and it sits behind the cockpit, driving the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential automatic transmission.Suspension is by independent double wishbones front and rear and braking is handled by big (355mm diameter) discs. The first car (chassis number 0001) will go to an unknown Western Australian buyer who has stumped up the $198,000 asking price.
© 2008 Newcastle Herald