Denys Dobbie

Sad news came via John Lawrence in Palma, Majorca,  to say that Denys Dobbie, who was the original secretary of the Ecurie Ecosse Association, had died of cancer in the town in February.

Denys had an interesting career, was mad on motor sport and motor racing but his plans were cut short following an accident at home which saw him badly injure his left arm. Ironically he had just bought the supercharged MG Special, the Bongazoo, from Archie Craig which he had kept out of sight of his parents. Following the accident he sold the Bongazoo to Ecurie Ecosse mechanic Peter Mossman.

 

Prior to this Denys had used his Isetta bubble car in various driving test events and competed against Jim Clark at an MG event against Clark in Ian Scott Watson’s Goggomobil.

 

Denys trained as an accountant but once he qualified he moved to America because the pay was better and then returned to Scotland, married and had a son, David. He then left Scotland for the Bahamas and became a partner in an offshoot of Slater-Walker which led him to be in on the ground floor of the Austrailian “Poseidon” company which rose to great heights and then crashed losing a lot of money. Denys had shrewdly sold all his shares well in advance of this and returned to Scotland with a mansion in Perthshire. He formed DART ( Dobbie Automotive Racing Team) first with a Chevron that was raced by Graham Birrell and then two Chevron B19’s with John Miles and Graham Hill as the drivers. He was an investor in GRD and intended to race the GRD 2 litre sports car which was shown at the London Racing Car Show painted in DART colours but this did not happen. However, in 1973 , he bought a GRD Formula 2 car for David Walker to race but the start of the season was a disaster . Half way through he ran Bertil Roos and things improved but at the end of that season he pulled out of racing and instead bought the Knockhill Circuit from the farmer, Tom Kinnaird, who had originally created the circuit. Dobbie put a lot of money into Knockhill and invited Chris Amon to open the circuit officially in 1975.

 

When he sold the circuit just over a year later he disappeared from the scene. He married three times and contracted cancer from which he died.