The record
Bowler Motorsport of Belper built its name on Defender-based competition cars — Tomcat, Wildcat, Nemesis — before moving to its own spaceframe chassis. The Pennine V6 was the last of the Defender-chassis line: a 2015 prototype on a Defender 110 crew-cab chassis, chassis B0WLE406155580001, into which Bowler fitted the 335 bhp supercharged 3.0-litre V6 and ZF eight-speed automatic gearbox lifted straight from the Jaguar F-Type, keeping the kerb weight under two tonnes. It carried Bilstein competition remote-reservoir dampers with hydraulic bump stops, uprated ventilated discs all round, lightweight 16-inch competition wheels on Cooper Discoverer tyres, an MSA/FIA roll cage, an 80-litre ATL fuel cell, racing harnesses, a Bosch LCD dash and a Terratrip 303 rally computer.
It was the last competition car Drew Bowler drove before his death in 2016. Afterwards Bowler's head of motorsport Dave Marsh and co-driver Ashley Cackett — whose names are on the doors — campaigned it, taking a class result at the 2019 Welsh Hill Rally and overall victory in the Bowler Comp Safari. RM Sotheby's sold it at Paris in 2021 (lot 141) for €51,750. The photographs show it in white with red front wings and front panel, red and dark grey splatter graphics along the sides, black arch extensions, white alloys, a silver tubular front bumper carrying two Lazer LED light bars, Bilstein branding on the wings and the registration FJ15 JXV.
