Australian Dictionary of Biography

Bib Stillwell, 1960

Evening Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library

Bermar Sellars ‘Bib’ Stillwell (1927—1999), motor-racing driver and businessman, was born on 31 July 1927 in Melbourne, only child of locally born parents Bertie Sellars Stillwell, merchant and manufacturer, and Marion Elizabeth Fielden. Bermar was a contraction of his parents’ names, but ‘Bib’ was the closest he could get to pronouncing the name as a toddler and it stuck. Educated at Trinity Grammar School, Kew (1934–38), and Scotch College, Hawthorn (1938–44), he became an apprentice motor mechanic and briefly studied mechanical engineering at Melbourne Technical College, but tuning, racing, and selling motor cars, and later aeroplanes, would fuel his career. A shop owner had introduced him to building and racing bicycles, and he further developed his mechanical skills building a 1927 Amilcar that arrived in pieces. In 1946 his father imported for him an MG-TC car, which Bib first raced at the Ballarat airstrip in 1947 before winning the Victorian Trials Championship the next year.

In January 1949, harnessing his entrepreneurial flair and his success as a racing driver, Stillwell opened a workshop at Kew with financial support from his father and on a property owned by his mother. Working initially in partnership with Derham George, a mechanic and Royal Australian Air Force officer twelve years his senior, he sold and serviced MG, Morris, and later Jaguar cars. A few months later, on 12 April, he married Barbara Nance Allan, a Perth-born bookkeeper, at the Littlejohn Memorial Chapel, Scotch College. They would have three sons, Michael, Robert, and Christopher. The business partnership with George was dissolved in 1951. B. S. Stillwell & Co. was recognised for excellence in sales and service, and in 1953 Stillwell established a Holden dealership, which became one of the largest in Australia.

During the 1950s Stillwell continued his racing career, contesting his first Australian Grand Prix in 1953 in an Austin-Healey. He drove some of the finest racing cars of his era, including Jaguar, Maserati, Aston Martin, Lola, Cooper, and Repco Brabham cars, and won four consecutive Australian Drivers’ Championships (1962–65). Although he never won an Australian Grand Prix, he placed second in 1960 and 1962. In 1963 he contemplated joining the international Grand Prix circuit but opted to prioritise his business. The motoring journalist David McKay described Stillwell’s racing ability as Formula 1 standard, ‘not least for his ability to drive fast without mistakes or destroying the equipment’ (Murrall, pers. comm.). Retiring in 1965, he thereafter participated only in vintage car races.

In 1961 Stillwell had driven an Aston Martin in the 24-hour race at Le Mans, France, with his friend Lex Davison, but they did not finish. There he met Gillian Mary Howell Harris, who was the race secretary for Aston Martin, and they remained in contact. Having divorced his first wife, he married Harris on 27 July 1965 at the Register Office, Ashford, England. They would have two children, Marianne and Nicholas. In February 1966 Stillwell made the momentous decision to switch his dealership to the Ford Motor Company. This sent shockwaves through the industry and proved pivotal in building Ford’s market presence in Australia. Living in the mansion ‘Ross House’ on Cotham Road, Kew, which he purchased in 1964, Stillwell was a prominent member of the Rotary Club of Hawthorn and a councillor (1975–79) of the City of Kew. He was also president (1974–79) of the Scotch College Foundation and a member (1976–80) of the school’s council. Gillian was noted for her charity work for underprivileged and autistic children.

Stillwell had been introduced to flying by Jack Brabham in 1962 and soon bought a Beechcraft Debonair light aircraft. Engaging in flying with the same ‘gusto’ as motor racing, he purchased the Civil Flying School at Moorabbin Airport and in 1967 set up Stillwell Aviation Pty Ltd, distributing for Beechcraft and from 1970 for Learjet. He later recalled his luck that his business ‘coincided with the expansion in the corporate aircraft area’ (Tuckey 1990, 80). In 1979 he moved to Tucson, Arizona, as senior vice-president of the Gates Learjet Corporation. Three years later he was president. He achieved a world altitude record for an executive jet in 1983, soaring 52,835 feet (16,093 m) above Palm Springs, California, in a Learjet 55. Although he resigned from Gates Learjet in 1985, he remained in Tucson, where he was a director of the Arizona Bank and managed a car dealership, Grand Prix Motors.

Returning to Melbourne in 1989, Stillwell and his wife built a new home on several acres at Wonga Park. He had triple bypass heart surgery that year. While maintaining his business interests in the United States of America, he refocused his attention on cars, adding a BMW dealership at South Yarra in 1990 and later a Jaguar dealership at Doncaster. He also managed Toyota and Honda dealerships in New South Wales as well as Toyota and Ford truck dealerships in Adelaide and Brisbane. Undeterred by the difficult business conditions he encountered in the early 1990s, his business was again flourishing when he died suddenly of a heart attack on 12 June 1999 at South Yarra. Buried in Springvale cemetery, he was survived by his second wife and his five children.

Stillwell was a sociable, driven, flamboyant perfectionist with a strong commitment to family, but his autocratic management style left his children—all of whom were involved in the business—with a challenging legacy. ‘It was his train set,’ Michael Stillwell later observed; ‘he ran it how he wanted and we were his employees’ (Thomson 2004). In 2001 he was posthumously awarded an OAM for service to the motor and aviation industries, to motor sports, and to the community. His children managed the Stillwell Motor Group until they sold it in 2024 for $55 million.