Drew Bowler raced a modified Land Rover in the early 1980s, and when other competitors wanted copies he began building them on the family farm at Belper in 1985. The Tomcat used the axles, engine and gearbox of a live-axle Land Rover — Defender, Range Rover or Discovery — under a glassfibre body in the shape of a Defender, with an 88-inch wheelbase and a spartan interior.
The wheelbase grew to 100 inches in 1995 and the Wildcat replaced the Tomcat at Bowler from 1998. Tomcat Motorsport, founded in 2001, continued the design and still builds it in five wheelbases.
Tomcat 88 (1985–1994)
1 VEHICLE IN THIS CHAPTERThe first Tomcats, on an 88-inch wheelbase.
Registry records · chapter 1
Tomcat 100 (1995–1998)
1 VEHICLE IN THIS CHAPTERStretched to 100 inches on a box-section chassis; its body style passed to the Wildcat 100.
Registry records · chapter 2
After Bowler (2001– )
1 VEHICLE IN THIS CHAPTERTomcat Motorsport took on the design in 2001 and builds 80, 88, 93, 100 and 106-inch versions; it counts more than 700 Tomcats since the first.
Registry records · chapter 3
Base models
The structural configurations the registry and the Creator build from; each page carries the researched specification.Sources
- Bowler — LRLife
- Bowler Wildcat: the road-legal rally racer that conquered the Dakar Rally — CarBuzz
- History (Bowler) — Tomcat Motorsport
- Bowler Wildcat — Wikipedia