The Canon Bolwell mystery

We noticed the following ad in an old photographic magazine and couldn’t quite believe our eyes. 

The Canon Cameras competition was for the best photograph taken of John Latham’s Bolwell Nagari competing at any round of the 1973 Australian Sports Car Championship. But here’s the unbelievable part. It clearly states that the winning photographer would “win the Bolwell Nagari”. That clearly implies Latham’s race car. Yes, the works Nagari! You must be joking?

Dean Malone, from the Bolwell Car Club of Australia, asked around and the consensus is that the Bolwell factory hadn’t officially approved the competition and, understandably, weren’t willing to give away their factory racer (we’ll let you work out what that car would be worth today). Others can vaguely remember seeing the winning photo appearing in print, so perhaps it did go ahead. Whatever, Malone says the works Nagari was eventually destroyed by someone in a racing accident.

There was also a rumour that Campbell Bolwell bought back the remains of this car and is planning to restore it. Not so. He says he has no idea where the championship car is now. All that remains are a few pics of it under construction on the Bolwell website.

As for the dodgy photo competition, neither Canon nor the Bolwell Corporation have any recollection of it.