Touring abroad with Miss Dobson

Ladies with historic rallying ambitions, looking for a suitable car: look no further. A perfect example of a splendid pre-war motor with extensive pre-war rally history will be available soon. It’s a 1933 Rover Speed Pilot with a chequered and well-documented life in the hands of Miss E.M. Dobson. Evelyn? Edith? Eleanor? Related to the great racer Arthur Dobson? We don’t know. But we do know she must have been a girl to our liking!

Between 1934 and 1938, Miss Dobson entered and drove her Rover in a great number of rallies and trials – among them the Scottish Rally, Welsh Rally, WASA London-Exeter and RAC Rally. Apart from that she really must have loved touring abroad also as she took the car to Switzerland, Monte Carlo, Austria, Belgium France and Holland several times. From the seller’s blurb “Miss Dobson was a keen amateur photographer and cinematographer and included in the paperwork is a DVD with films covering the 1934 Scottish Rally, the London-Exeter, Welsh, RAC and Scottish Rallies. There are also some fascinating films of their continental trips including skiing in Switzerland. These films are quite extensive and are completely captivating to watch.” Reason alone to buy the car..?

Oh - there’s more. Miss Dobson’s original 1936 RAC Rally Route Card was found back more recently and quite by pure chance and there’s the original handbook plus her detailed notebook, too! To quote the seller once again: “This car has more history than most and clearly led a very active life pre-war.”

That certainly seems to be the case, and we wonder what happened to it after 1953 with ‘the notebook running out of entries’. The trial is picked up in 1965 again and a couple of male owners followed. It did get restored somewhere in the 1980s or 1990s and once again between 2009 and 2014, but it seems the then-owners did justice to the car, keeping much of the patina intact, with the interior looking to be highly original. So… how about that for a European tour, tracing the old routes from the original film footage..?

Words by Jeroen Booij. Pictures courtesy of Brightwells Auctioneers.

Originally published: October 30, 2020

Publiziert:

Montag Oktober 2nd, 2023

Frank Jolley

01 Oktober 2023, 22:23

I am the owner of Elizabeth Dobson's Rover Speed Pilot. Adam - can we get the two cars together sometime? We can pool information. Frank

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Adam Forster

14 Februar 2021, 23:58

Hello there.
I own Moyra J Dobsons MG J2 and im looking to find out any more information to go with the car if you could help that would be wonderful.

Best regards
Adam forster

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David Grimstead

03 November 2020, 00:27

Elizabeth Mary Dobson had a younger car-rallying sister, Moyra Jean Dobson. They were the daughters of Ernest Dobson, a Boer War veteran and London-based electrical engineer who lived at Drakelowe House, Burton-on-Trent from at least 1922 to 1939. They were nieces of Councillor J. D. Robertson, a local brewery director who owned that house until 1948. They were not related to the Sussex, racing-driver Dobson brothers Arthur, Austin and Edmund.

A web-search of “m j dobson rac” should find an image of Elizabeth filming her sister preparing her MG for the 1936 RAC Rally, for which both were entrants. There are four more on the Motoring Picture Library website of her rallying ALT551 in Scotland also in 1936.

Competitive spirit was emerging when “Miss Dobson of Drakelowe House”, likely Moyra, won a local reliability trial for open cars at the Marchington Church Fete in June 1934. The sister’s father Ernest was their motoring mentor; he held a clean driving licence from 1902 until he died aged 92 in 1972.

Between them, the sisters drove several cars. Both started the 1934 Scottish Rally from Gretna Green; Elizabeth in her plush Rover and Moyra in her basic MG. Elizabeth failed to finish the Welsh rally in the Rover in July 1935 but was placed in the 1936 Scottish. Moyra drove her MG in the 1934 RAC Rally, a Riley in the July 1936 Welsh, an MG in the 1936 RAC and a Bugatti in the 1938 Welsh.

Elizabeth was not wholly loyal to the Rover, being entered to drive an OM in the September 1937 Junior Car Club Annual Reliability Trial from Wilton to Ilfracombe, when she was the only woman to finish out of four who started. She was entered again for the September 1938 Junior Car Club event in an OM.

Their father had helped to establish British interest in winter sports in Switzerland between the wars; hence, Elizabeth was a successful member of the 1930s English Ski Team. Remaining unmarried, she took up farming in 1941, to breed prize-winning highland and Nashend Farm spotted ponies, dying in 1966. Moyra had married Lt-Colonel H. W. King in 1939, when her sister gave her a cabinet of tools as a wedding present; she lived beyond 1974 when she was still only 60.

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Touring abroad with Miss Dobson

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