Posted under random rubbish as it's a carlton forum and it's not a carlton.
But because people have asked about it, I'll start a thread rather than putting it all in the LPG guide, which has nothing to do with it.
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The very first Bowler Wildcat made - build number 001 on a 51 reg plate.
Originally made with a Landrover 200TDI engine (Ok for a diesel class, but not the best.)
Purchased by my Dad about 2 years ago to run in the british off-road championships, and ultimately to run in the Dakar.
This has run the Dakar 4 times, been rebuilt about 3 times and cost well over £100,000 (spent by the previous owner) over the years... it was left stranded in the desert once, and stripped completely by scavengers!
It was then recovered by the previous owner at great expense, shipped over to the Bowler factory and rebuilt with a brand new BMW 3.0 24v straight 6l TDS engine. (New bellhousing, also at great expense, although now they are being manufactured by landrover as the new Range Rover TD6 engine is the same thing!)
Chipped up to about 235BHP, it has more horses than my carlton!
Here's some pics of when he first bought it:
And then resprayed ready for the Rally Raid UK signwriting.
Then all done with signwriting and ready to do some racing!
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The last round of the british off-road championships had a slightly bad turnout. The stages were more like a rally stages than off-raod ones, and my dad rolled it about 3 times at about 60-70mph.
Rollcage around windscreen is bent, and most of the fiber-glass bodywork is trashed....... gonna cost a fair penny to rebuild. He's slightly gutted to say the least!
But the rollcage certainly did it's job... it's the biggest accident he's been in full stop, let alone in motorsport... if it's been a normal car they would've almost certainly be dead by now.
the car itself is still fine, engine still runs very well and drives perfectly, so no domage was done to any suspension apart from it knocked a hose off one of the shocker resevoirs and thats it.
(sorry about the picture sizes, photobucket is being stupid...)
One bent rollcage:
One sorry looking dad:
It still isn't rebuilt yet, 6 months on, but he has a lot to do with the Rally Raid UK team, including preparing for the next Dakar rally, which IIRC starts on the 1st January 2006.
He's in morocco at the moment, testing the new line of desert warriers that the team have designed and built themselves.
Check out
www.rallyraid.co.uk for more information about the team and what they do.
