Currently reading: Bowler founder Drew Bowler dies
Drew Bowler, founder of famed high-performance Land Rover performance car company Bowler Motorsport, has died

The founder of Bowler Motorsport, the motorsport company that made high-performance Land Rover-based cars including the Wildcat and EXR, has died.

Drew Bowler’s Derbyshire-based company will carry on despite its founder's passing. He founded it after Bowler first modified a Series I Defender to drive competitively, had considerable success and begun taking orders for similar cars from others.

Read about Bowler's Land Rover Defender Challenge here

The Bowler company has produced numerous modified Land Rovers for competition, including the Bowler Motorsport Land Rover Defender Challenge, Nemesis, Tomcat and Wildcat.

Bowler went on to produce more and more extreme Land Rover-based cars, including Dakar-spec racers which competed in the famously extreme off-road race.

Bowler Motorsport’s homepage pays tribute to Drew Bowler: “It is with much sadness that we share the news that Bowler founder and off-road motorsport pioneer, Drew Bowler, passed away suddenly on Monday November 14, 2016.

“Drew did more than anyone to bring Rally Raid to the UK, and through the succession of innovative and race-winning cars he developed, he took Bowler to the highest levels of international motorsport including the Dakar Rally, where the Bowler cars and team spirit shone brightly.”

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Straff 18 November 2016

So sad

We spent a fantastic weekend at the Goodwood FOS a few years ago in the company of Jim Whelan and Drew who showed us the ropes for our first visit with the rally car. Drew slept in a small two man tent and was fantastic company. They cooked up a scheme for us to take the then brand new Nemesis down to the Ball and pull up outside the front doors where we were met by Drew and Jim tugging their forelocks and playing the part of servants in front of hundreds of people. We were nervous as hell doing it but they were brilliant. Drew was just the most down to earth person you could wish to meet and a tremendous engineer. Such a tragic loss.