BOWLED OVER

MUSCLE: 1999 Bowler Wildcat off-road racer POWER: BMW 3.0-litre straight-six turbodiesel (230 bhp) OWNER: Nigel Allcock

THIS is the fifirst Wildcat 200 ever built by the late off-road legend, Drew Bowler. Its immaculate yellow-peril paintwork belies the fact that this Land Rover-based racer has been totally written off, twice. It was originally built for renowned off-roader Paul Reynolds, who competed in three Dakar desert races in it, but on the last one he went airborne over a sand dune only to dive 30 feet, nose-fifirst, into another car. The Wildcat was totally destroyed and, because it was in such a remote location, abandoned in the desert.

Paul was sure that that was the last he’d ever see of it, but it was recovered by locals and eventually found its way back to the UK, where Drew Bowler rebuilt it, with a BMW straight-six engine to replace the 300Tdi original.

Current owner Nigel Allcock bought it in 2005, but wrote it off himself soon afterwards while competing in the British Off-road Championships, in Scotland. “It was the third round and we were leading in our class, but it slid sideways at 60 mph and rolled three times,” recalls Nigel. “There wasn’t a single fifibreglass body panel intact and even its roll cage was bent.”

Amazingly, it was still driveable, so Nigel drove it two miles out of the forest and trailered it home to his workshop, where it languished until two years ago, when the 70-year-old, from Sandbach, Cheshire, decided to restore it. What you see here is the fifinished result.

“With 230 bhp and 400 lb-ft of torque, it pulls like a train,” says Nigel.