Fibreglass was a material to chase dreams with and gave birth to a number of auto start-ups which manufactured a range of performance muscle cars through to jolly cheap run-abouts from the early ‘60s to late ‘70s.
The Purvis Eureka is a sports car that was produced by Purvis Cars at Dandenong in Victoria from 1974 until 1991 after Allan Purvis had negotiated the rights to license building the Volkswagen Beetle-based sports kit car from its UK designer.
Marketed as ‘A little American influence with a lot of Australian ingenuity’, the ‘Perentti’ sportscar was designed and built by Revolution Fibreglass in the outer Melbourne suburb of Bayswater.
Campbell Bolwell’s pioneering work moulding fibreglass components was first forged on making replacement panels for a 1937 Ford V8 sedan he’d bought for £50, after his brother had taken it for a serious burn one afternoon.
At its peak, South Australian based Elfin Sports Cars was the world’s second largest producer of racing cars.
Considered by many as the most successful attempt to design, manufacture and market a minicar in Australia, the Goggomobil Dart was an Australian-designed fibreglass two-seater open sports car that went on sale in 1959.
The Zeta is a marque of automobile that was produced in Australia from 1963 to 1965 by South Australian manufacturing company Lightburn & Company Limited. It was a large industrial company employing over 500 people, that manufactured a raft of products from the “Lightning” brand concrete mixers, washing machines and spin driers, wheelbarrows and boats.
Composites Australia congratulates Campbell Bolwell in being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to Mechanical Engineering.
Campbell Bolwell built his first fibreglass sports car in his parents’ garage when he was 16 years old and subsequently transformed his hobby of building special sports cars into a business. The following 60+ years is a compelling story of entrepreneurial spirit and raw Aussie initiative, innovation and adaptability.
Operating from a rural location outside the Victorian township of Yarram, The Fibreglass Factory (TFF) is owned and operated by husband and wife, Ben and Bek Muir along with a growing team of traditional fabrication workers.
