[Barry Boor]

About ten years ago I discovered the excellent glassfibre shells made by an ex-pat Englishman named John Bacon. John had moved to Australia some years before and his range of bodyshells fitted perfectly with the mid-1950s series I was building at the time.

I heard some years later that John, who was by no means a young man, had decided to give up the business and had passed all his moulds over to someone else. This someone else, so the story goes, had no intention of making shells available to the general public.

This was VERY sad news. I am wondering if anyone knows who that lucky person was who inherited all those moulds and if anything ever came of the former John Bacon business?

 

[superhornets]

Hi Barry
Itis true that john is not making shells any more ,and the story i was told was that the moulds had been destroyed which seems a little bit at odds with johns avowed intention to preserve various shells for posterity by repopping them
It did occur to me that the moulds may have been passed to Pattos who does some shells which look like they could be out of johns vast range ,perhaps one of our antipodean colleagues will be able to tell us

Cheers tony

 

[Phil Kalbfell]

Many of Johns mould were beyond there use by date, and not much good. This and his wish to have more family time were part of the reason for him to give it all away. As far as I can find out the moulds did go to the tip! I am lucky enough to have some of Johns bodies here that I am slowly detailing and recasting.

 

[David Lawson]

I know that some of the original masters found their way outside of Australia, I have John's Monogram Lotus 33 bodyshell and gearbox that he took his mould from.

As Phil says the moulds were producing shells that required loads of refining but they were cheap and fun to work on.

David

 

[Schackel]

QUOTE (David Lawson @ 6 Jul 2011, 18:51) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I know that some of the original masters found their way outside of Australia, I have John's Monogram Lotus 33 bodyshell and gearbox that he took his mould from.

As Phil says the moulds were producing shells that required loads of refining but they were cheap and fun to work on.

David

I think these bodies are from John. They are fiberglass. I had bought a pile from Nostalgia Raceways years ago.

Roland

 

[Barry Boor]

If moulds were destroyed I guess that there really can't be much objection to the idea of making some rubber moulds from existing shells, thus facilitating resin casting.

 

[Phil Kalbfell]

Roland yes they are some of Johns work. The Ferrari we reworked some year ago and remoulded, the Chappy is almost complete.
I still have a box of bodies to get out one day.
As far as moulding from his originals John never complained when people remoulded his cars,he is a real gentleman.

 

[GeraldL]

Must be the John Bacon of Estuary Equipe back in the 60's, amazing to trace another one. Gerald L