Bowler Nemesis
Many readers may never have heard of Bowler but for those who have they will know that the British firm is an off-road specialist that manufactures racing SUVs based on the Land Rover Defender and Range Rover.
The company is now planning an expansion into the world of road-going cars and recently appointed a former Land Rover chief engineer, Steve Haywood, who has stepped in as Bowler's new managing director.
Speaking with Autocar, Haywood has revealed that his first job at Bowler will be to develop the firm’s fourth generation model, and then to develop a road-going version.
“We have a tremendous opportunity,” he explained. “Bowler has generated huge interest in past years for a street-legal version of the competition cars. But we’ll begin work on any new model quite slowly, taking care with its positioning and specifications, keeping all the recognition devices to maintain the pedigree, and listening carefully to the customer’s requirements.”
One interesting spin is that Bowler was recently acquired by British coachbuilder CPP Global Holdings Ltd. This is the same company that bought Spyker’s sports car division and recently formed a joint-venture with Italian design house Zagato.
With all this in mind, could the Spyker D12 Peking-to-Paris S-SUV live on as a Zagato-designed Bowler creation? Only time will tell.
[Autocar]
