DIRTY STUFF
THEY called this innocent-looking car ‘The Fright’ with damn good reason. Sure, it resembled one of hundreds of open-topped Austin-healey ‘Bugeye’ Sprites that had been fitted with an aftermarket fibreglass front panel, eliminating the prayingmantis pop-eye headlights. The wheels had been changed for English Minilites, but there was this prominent power bulge in the forward-opening bonnet. The seats were trimmed in leather, the manual gear lever was a bit different, and nothing else. It just sat there, smiling at me in country Glen Innes one winter’s morning when wife Jan and I had been thrown the keys.
We had heard about The Fright, one of a collection of exotics owned by Sydney medical specialist Dr Geoff Davis. There was an early Rolls limo from India, a weird three-wheeled thing made out of plywood, a Maser, a Ferrari 750 Monza sports racer from the 1950s, and this. Geoff had found the little car in England and shipped it to Oz. He told me the barely believable story that an eccentric Englishman had a 3.8litre E-type Jaguar, which he wrote off in a major crash. Instead of selling the remains to the car breakers, he bought the Healey Sprite, did a lot of measurements, and figured it was possible to slot the six-cylinder twin-cam mill from the E-type into the ridiculously small engine bay, which was then home to almost one litre of BMC A-series four. And, as he had spare wads of cash, he would get the UK’S best people to build what would be a violent machine.
He sent the E-type engine to Jaguar; they pumped it up to racing D-type spec and got it belting out 270hp. David Brown, makers of Aston Martin sports cars, provided the four-slot manual gearbox, and from their parts bin came a live rear axle narrow enough to fit under the Bugeye’s tail. Lotus got the nod to radically redesign the BMC suspension and brakes, Connolly trimmed the cabin in top-quality Scottish leather, and that power bulge and Miniltes finished off this Pommy sleeper. D-types with these 3.8 engines pulled 290km/h along the long Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans in the mid-1950s, and this car was smaller, lighter and possessed less frontal area to push against the wind – 300km/h on Australian roads was very possible.
Yet when we drove The Fright, it was incredibly quiet and docile. That Jaguar six had no vices, big mobs of torque and unbelievable tyre-melting acceleration. Lotus had done good with the suspension, for it never once stepped out of line, and although I didn’t even begin to establish just what 5800rpm in fourth gear would bring, Jan drove The Fright for my photographs and only complained that the clutch was heavy. We gave this utterly violent machine back to its keepers and left for home, wondering why our road Subaru had lost its guts!
Another memorable sports car from that year is the Australian-built Bolwell. One of the many innovative cars made by the Bolwell brothers, this was the backbone-chassied Nagari in coupe form. Of the 140 that rolled out of the factory, most came fitted with Ford’s 302 V8, complete with a single two-barrel carby. Somehow, this test car that we were allowed to take out along the New England Highway had been fitted with a 351 HO mill – almost overkill given the Nagari’s all-up weight of just 925kg. The Bolwells had designed their car with a front suspension of Ford-made uprights, A-arms with coils, and an anti-roll bar. The live rear axle had four-links and more coils. Braking happened through front discs and rear drums, while the steering rack was pinched from an Austin. The body had been moulded in fibreglass.
In contemporary road tests, the 302-engined Nagari achieved quarter-mile times as low as 14.1 seconds and up to 14.8 seconds. But this weapon had an HO engine. What the hell was this going to be like? The courageous owner told me to drive the car as hard as I wanted, but warned that over 160km/h the front had a tendency to lift. “They’ve fixed this with a front spoiler,” he informed me, “but I haven’t fitted one yet.”
I took this Nagari out on the tar on a clear morning, marvelling at the huge amount of utterly flexible grunt and the effortless way the Bolwell passed lines of cars in comfort and minimal noise. It was very civilised for a frontengined, Oz-built supercar. When the highway was long and straight, I tried for that barrier of 160km/h and violence took us there. And yes, the front did lift. This was a gentle happening, a warning not to push further or we might end up off the road, upside down and probably on fire. Yep, this Ho-engined Nagari was some sensational supercar.
WHEN THE HIGHWAY WAS LONG AND STRAIGHT, I TRIED FOR THAT BARRIER OF 160KM/H, AND YES, THE FRONT DID LIFT