Australian Muscle Car 2020-02

Nagari 300
said to me one day I think we
can fit a V8 in this thing’.”
Campbell Bolwell is sitting in an
upstairs office of his eponymous
“Toby
sportscar company recalling the
genesis of his latest two-door coupe, the
Nagari 500.
Toby is Toby Hunt, the chief engineer
and sole full-time employee of the auto and
research and development business, Bolwell
Technologies. ‘Thing’ is the Nagari 300, or Mk
10, a mid-engined sportscar that was revealed
to the world in 2008.
Powered by a 3.5-litre Toyota V6 petrol engine
(yes Camry, Avalon et al) mated to a six-speed
auto, the 300 never made it on-sale primarily
because it took years to wind its way through the
Australian Design Rules process.
But a 300 sat downstairs in the Bolwell
Technologies skunkworks in the Melbourne
suburb of Seaford all the while. And Hunt’s everactive
mind pondered it, even as he beavered
away on other projects.
“Toby is a bit of a gem. He knows every
bloody thing,” Campbell says. “He is very much
the boffin and essential in this sort of
work.”
And some years ago Toby just
happened to mention to Campbell the
fact a V8 could fit into the engine bay.
“I said ‘yeah?’ and we had a look at
it and decided with a bit of modification
we could. So I said ‘OK, let’s build the
next model’.”
That’s the shorthand version anyway.
But it illuminates Campbell Bolwell’s
love of a good idea and sportscars.
He’s a man who – with family and
friends – has left a unique imprint on
the Australian car industry.
Now in his late 70s, Campbell’s
automotive story is well known to
enthusiasts.
He built the original Mk 1 Bolwell
– a roadster based on a 1937 Ford
flathead V8 sedan – in his family’s
Frankston garage at the age 16 in 1958. W
little brother Graeme bent and buckled the panels
so badly in an off-road excursion, a life-long
investigation of fibre-glass and composites began.
At 20, Campbell turned his passion into a
business with the launch of Bolwell Cars and the
Mk 4 sports racer.
The Mk 5 and stylish Mk 7 followed; both kits
cars, both Holden-powered. In between came
Mk 6 or SR6 racer, its
mid-engined design
hinting of things to come
far further down the track.
The original Nagari – or flow, in an Aboriginal
language – was the company’s gamechanger. It
rocked the Australian automotive scene when it
was revealed at the 1969 Melbourne motor show.
That feline oneiece
fibreglass
ody, that
hunderous Windsor
302 V8. More than
100 examples were
built before those
dratted ADRs
forced Bolwell
to stop building
n late 1974, but
the Nagari remains Australia’s most famous
domestically developed and built sportscar.
Almost exactly 50 years later in October 2019
at Motorclassica, the Nagari 500, or Bolwell Mk
11, made its public debut under the domed roof
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