clubstylus

Hi All ,

I bought Ben Bowie's car about 4 years ago and I'm ashamed to say it has sat in my garage ever since whilst I finished other projects. However, the time has come to start work on renovating it to its former glory, so expect loads of questions over the coming months.

I live on the Shropshire/Cheshire border so if there are any members near(ish), it would be good to hear from you.

Regards,

Giles

Hi Giles.

Your a long way from me, but good to hear from another Stylus owner. Any pics or plans?

Hi Kev,

I have got some pics somewhere which I'll dig out. I've also got a short video clip somewhere done by Ben for Peter P. (Ben used to direct C4's Driven, I believe)

As far as plans go, I think the first job will be to get the body off the car and give the chassis a good going over and shotblast etc. After that the body needs a bit of work and a good respray.

The car's currently a zetec install and will probably stay that way but maybe with fuel injection instead of carbs. That said plans do have a habit of getting changed.......

Giles

Giles

Nice intro, hi & welcome !

If you feel like giving me your SSC chassis no I'll add your car to my Stylus Register - not on there at the mo, so that's another re-found Stylus

Good luck with your rebuild plans !

Rgds

Matt

Ben's car was used as a chase/camera car , when testing the cars on TV . Apparently it ran rings round anything they tested even with camera etc onboard . I believe he tried to get it on the program as a tested car but they didn't want it to embaress the other cars tested so it was no go
I seem to remember it only had a tuned crossflow up front when on that program too

Welcome Giles.

Interested to see/hear more about your car.
I am doing something similar to mine at the moment - I have a thread in the (Re)Build section showing it.

Dave

Hi there,


Good luck with the rebuild, would be nice to see some details/pics as it progresses too

Rob

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the warm welcome

Matt,
I will dig out my chassis number tonight and forward it on to you. I was trying to look at the register but for some reason I can't seem to read it in your post. Is there another link to it
I know it's an early one with an IRS Fury chassis, but I also know Ben and Peter played about with it quite a bit and scrapped the IRS in favour of a prototype DeDion set up.

StylusSprinter,
I remember Ben telling me that story - spoilsports He also told me that Penny Mallory used to take it him out in between shoots to teach him how to powerslide it. Judging by how he demonstrated this to me on an industrial estate, she was obviously a good teacher

Dave,
Yours is a car I very nearly tried to buy. Sadly I had too many projects and not enough money, time, or storage to persuade the wife it was a good idea. Very nice car and I have followed your rebuild blog for a while now.

Rob,
Yours is another very nice car that I looked at when it was up for sale. If you're interested in a 180hp all steel x/flow to go in it, give me a shout I was over your way recently looking at a Caterham for a friend in Malaysia. Some lovely roads around there if you fancy a blat/meet sometime.

Will dig out the photos tonight and post a few up. Is there a way of posting video?

Regards,

Giles

ShroppieFlyer wrote:I was trying to look at the register but for some reason I can't seem to read it in your post. Is there another link to it

Ah ... I shrunk jpg size yesterday... too small to read. Try again now

Ah... that would explain it. I thought I was going mad as I could read it last time I logged on

Avatar sorted. Now for the rest of the pics.

Giles

ShroppieFlyer wrote:Hi All ,

I bought Ben Bowie's car about 4 years ago and I'm ashamed to say it has sat in my garage ever since whilst I finished other projects. However, the time has come to start work on renovating it to its former glory, so expect loads of questions over the coming months.

I live on the Shropshire/Cheshire border so if there are any members near(ish), it would be good to hear from you.

Regards,

Giles

I'm not so far away near Chester, running a zetec on throttle bodies so can probably offer you some advice if needed. might even have a few bits knocking around if you find you need to replace anything...

Hi Alex (hope I got that right!),

Thanks for the offer of advice/bits - You may regret that . Great to know I've got someone nearby with a car with exactly the same engine format.

If you have a spare evening available sometime, I'd appreciate a chance to have a look at your car and a chat before I get going on the stripdown.

Regards,

Giles

A few photos. Apologies for the scenery, Ben took these outside his garage when I bought the car.

The headlight surrounds don't look as standard body moulds Perhaps Ben or maybe Neville Powell worked on them to fit poly covers

Well spotted . I do have one of covers but unfortunately the other one got lost on an outing apparently, so I need to get another from somewhere. Did I read somewhere on here that somebody had had some made

As far as the body goes, Ben told me that JP had told him that this was the first one made, although the chassis number would suggest it's later. However, I found a receipt for the car which was originally sold by JP to someone (i've got the name somewhere) as a rolling chassis in 1995, and on the road in the same year. (Original registration belongs to the donor car ('83)). Its original colour was Oxford Blue with grey powdercoat.

You're also right about Neville having a hand in the car. He definitely sculpted the back of the car for Ben, putting in the recessed number plate and lights, so it stands to reason he may have fiddled with the front.

Regards,

Giles