Sports car founder Campbell Bolwell named in honours list

Campbell Bolwell, a pioneer of local sports car manufacturing, has been honoured with the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).

Bolwell began producing sports cars in 1962, with hundreds of vehicles being built over the past six decades, though his company now makes large composite panels for Kenworth trucks.

“Campbell’s long career in automotive and manufacturing innovations is widely acknowledged within Australia’s manufacturing community,” the company said in a statement.

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Graeme and Campbell Bolwell.

“Having begun working with composites in the early 1960s – long before it gained the popularity it has today – Campbell is acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of the composites industry in Australia.”

Bolwell cars is perhaps best known for the Nagari – named after an indigenous word meaning ‘flowing’ – which was created after Campbell’s brother Graeme returned from working under Colin Chapman at Lotus for a period, bringing with him a wealth of knowledge.

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But while the company no longer produces large volumes of cars, the Bolwell Corporation has been heavily involved in local truck and caravan manufacturing in the years since.

“I was a petrolhead that failed high school, and from it all we’ve built up a multinational company,” Campbell told Street Machine in 2019.

“All that was possible because of the reputation we forged building Bolwell motor cars.”