I don't know how I didn't hear/read this story until now.
In 1929, a couple of schoolboys- John and Richard Bolster- took it upon themselves to build themselves a home-made car... for the stated purpose "of driving around a field as dangerously as possible". Made from a pre- WW1 motorcycle engine, on a chassis the brothers fashioned out of ash wood and metal straps, using a hand-drill (no power tools!), it started out as a simple chassis-with-motor... but later graduated to one of the most famous hill-climb cars in British motoring history- equipped, in its ultimate form, with TWIN Brough-Superior V-twin motorcycle engines modified to run on alcohol (120HP total), while still weighing ONLY 700 POUNDS.
My favorite aspect of the construction of the car, is that there are four individual exhaust pipes... going out in virtually all directions, all over the car- including two, that had to snake OVER the drivers legs! This was simple necessity- there was simply NO OTHER WAY to get the pipes out of the engines, with the way the engines had to be oriented (the front one is actually laid-over onto its side, to clear the side of the rear engine, and to allow the crankshafts to be close enough together to be coupled properly!)!
The story of the car is great, not only for the car itself, but for the perseverance and continued enthusiasm of one of the brothers, John Bolster- who never got rid of the car- after WWII, got it out of its bomb-scarred barn (in Kent- in the so-called "Bomb Alley", during WWII!) storage site, did more of his typically-insightful-bordering-on-genius modifications to it, and proceeded to start setting hillclimb records AGAIN... some near 20 years after construction.
Unfortunately, John Bolster was seriously injured in an accident in an ERA race car in 1949 (he went on to be a rather famous racing commentator), which mostly ended the competitive history for Bloody Mary. Afterward, she was admitted to the Montagu Motor Museum in Beaulieu England... however, on the condition that John Bolster be allowed to take her out to the odd hill-climb once in a while... as he wrote in the 1960s "she and I are growing old, disgracefully, together".
John Bolster died in 1984, and his widow, fiercely protective of her late husband's car, would not let anyone work with the car, until a very well-planned and enthusiasm-rich restoration project was started in the 1990s, led by Sandy Skinner. Skinner went through the trouble to "period restore" everything about the car... doing it as it would have been done in its own days of glory, to bring the car back to a state as absolutely close to what it was in, when it was raced, as possible. The car can still be found at the occasional vintage meet... "disgracefully" (mostly sideways! Bolster always said that corners were no problem- it was those tricky straight parts between the corners that were the problem!) running at break-neck speed up hills, to the thrill of crowds...
Here's a link to an article, with lots of incredibly good pictures of the tiny (barely big enough for a man to fit into!) car:
http://www.classicandperformancecar...eatures/247345/john_bolsters_bloody_mary.html
... and a video, showing it being started up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHC7_vV6zDU
... and a video, in "disgraceful" action, going up the hill at Prescott:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-cjh_EnY0A&feature=related
My only wish, would have been to find a video, showing someone going as sideways in the car as John Bolster himself did, in his glory days. That had to be something to see!!
Regards,
Gordon.
In 1929, a couple of schoolboys- John and Richard Bolster- took it upon themselves to build themselves a home-made car... for the stated purpose "of driving around a field as dangerously as possible". Made from a pre- WW1 motorcycle engine, on a chassis the brothers fashioned out of ash wood and metal straps, using a hand-drill (no power tools!), it started out as a simple chassis-with-motor... but later graduated to one of the most famous hill-climb cars in British motoring history- equipped, in its ultimate form, with TWIN Brough-Superior V-twin motorcycle engines modified to run on alcohol (120HP total), while still weighing ONLY 700 POUNDS.
My favorite aspect of the construction of the car, is that there are four individual exhaust pipes... going out in virtually all directions, all over the car- including two, that had to snake OVER the drivers legs! This was simple necessity- there was simply NO OTHER WAY to get the pipes out of the engines, with the way the engines had to be oriented (the front one is actually laid-over onto its side, to clear the side of the rear engine, and to allow the crankshafts to be close enough together to be coupled properly!)!
The story of the car is great, not only for the car itself, but for the perseverance and continued enthusiasm of one of the brothers, John Bolster- who never got rid of the car- after WWII, got it out of its bomb-scarred barn (in Kent- in the so-called "Bomb Alley", during WWII!) storage site, did more of his typically-insightful-bordering-on-genius modifications to it, and proceeded to start setting hillclimb records AGAIN... some near 20 years after construction.
Unfortunately, John Bolster was seriously injured in an accident in an ERA race car in 1949 (he went on to be a rather famous racing commentator), which mostly ended the competitive history for Bloody Mary. Afterward, she was admitted to the Montagu Motor Museum in Beaulieu England... however, on the condition that John Bolster be allowed to take her out to the odd hill-climb once in a while... as he wrote in the 1960s "she and I are growing old, disgracefully, together".
John Bolster died in 1984, and his widow, fiercely protective of her late husband's car, would not let anyone work with the car, until a very well-planned and enthusiasm-rich restoration project was started in the 1990s, led by Sandy Skinner. Skinner went through the trouble to "period restore" everything about the car... doing it as it would have been done in its own days of glory, to bring the car back to a state as absolutely close to what it was in, when it was raced, as possible. The car can still be found at the occasional vintage meet... "disgracefully" (mostly sideways! Bolster always said that corners were no problem- it was those tricky straight parts between the corners that were the problem!) running at break-neck speed up hills, to the thrill of crowds...
Here's a link to an article, with lots of incredibly good pictures of the tiny (barely big enough for a man to fit into!) car:
http://www.classicandperformancecar...eatures/247345/john_bolsters_bloody_mary.html
... and a video, showing it being started up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHC7_vV6zDU
... and a video, in "disgraceful" action, going up the hill at Prescott:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-cjh_EnY0A&feature=related
My only wish, would have been to find a video, showing someone going as sideways in the car as John Bolster himself did, in his glory days. That had to be something to see!!
Regards,
Gordon.
