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[Blake Discher]

American British Car Legend Dies
Dorothy Deen, March 28, 1922 – October 23, 2007

Oceanside California, October 23, 2007.
As raging wildfires threatened her Southern California home, Dorothy Deen Sitz died in a nearby Oceanside hospital after a long illness. The vivacious blonde Deen was best known for the Doretti sports car, a line of sports car accessories of the same name and for importing Triumph Sports cars for the Western United States. A darling of the local and automotive press, she was a common fixture at races and promoting the sports cars she sold.

Born in Hollywood, Calif., to engineer and businessman Arthur Andersen  and Martha Schultz Andersen, Dorothy grew up in a time when women either stayed home with children or worked as secretaries and telephone operators. At an early age, Dorothy Andersen had other ideas.

Her career started as a teenager test driving the Whizzer motor bicycles her father had redesigned. She graduated to a mail order business selling gasoline model airplane engines her father also designed and manufactured. Growing up in Los Angeles, Dorothy had always been interested in cars, but the interest really took off in 1950 when she took delivery of a brand new Ivory MG TD, which was followed by several sporty Simcas. Instantly, she was propelled into a world of rallies, clubs and races. Although her later business interests prevented her from racing, she and her father often ran their cars on an abandoned airfield near the Andersen beach house.

The next business venture forever changed Dorothy’s life. Unable to find high-quality accessories for her MG and her father’s Morgans, the pair designed and marketed their own wind wings, sun visors, luggage racks, valve covers in addition to wood and aluminum steering wheels. With backing from Andersen and in partnership with machinist Paul Bernhardt, Cal Specialties was born. To make the Cal Specialties line sound more exciting, the partners took the first three letters of Dorothy’s name, and turned it into the Italianate  “Doretti.” .

Through his work with thin-wall steel tubing, Andersen became involved with the Standard Swallow Company that was building a sports car based on Triumph TR2 running gear. In partnership with Dorothy, Andersen took on distribution of the new car in the U.S. and simultaneously picked up Western distribution rights for Triumph. Not only would Dorothy import the cars, but for a single dollar she sold the rights to the Doretti name that soon graced the attractive new two-seater.  After Doretti production ended in 1955, Deen continued to import Triumphs until the company bought out all distributors in 1960. She then became the 45th woman in the world to earn her helicopter pilot’s license and later co-owned and managed an aircraft dealership. She later returned to UCLA to become a para legal on her intended—but never completed--route to becoming an attorney. Along the way she declined Max Hoffman’s offer of a West Coast BMW distributorship and opted for a life of retirement and travel with her late husband, Tony Anthony, whom she met when he sold her that first MG TD sports cars years earlier. She is survived by automotive historian Jim Sitz, her husband of 16 years.

[god92b]

Thank-you for the great story of another piece of TR history. I had no idea about the distributers back then or the special place that Ms Deen held in the history of Triumph on the west coast. Thank-you, Blake!
Gordon

[Fournier]

Blake,

Thank you for posting this.

May the article on Dorothy Deen be quoted in whole or part in a VTR chapter newsletter?  (i.e., is it copyrighted material and, if so, to whom should it be credited?)

Thanks,

Art Fournier
Capital Triumph Register newsletter editor

[Blake Discher]

May the article on Dorothy Deen be quoted in whole or part in a VTR chapter newsletter?  (i.e., is it copyrighted material and, if so, to whom should it be credited?)

Yes, it may be reprinted, no credit is needed.  I do have the photograph in hi-res if you or another chapter would like to run it in their newsletter as well.

Best,
Blake

[Bob Muzio]

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Attendees of Triumphest 2000 in San Diego had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with Dorothy Deen, an intelligent, elegant, and beautiful lady.
Bob 
 
 

[StagByTriumph]

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Attendees of Triumphest 2000 in San Diego had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with Dorothy Deen, an intelligent, elegant, and beautiful lady.
Bob 

Yes yes, I remember her well.  Sharp as a tack in all ways, and still quite a looker.

Bob, there were some photo shoots of Dorothy Deen and Kas Kastner, with the Yellow Doretti that was at the show. 
Anyone have some of those for an issue of the TVT??? Or just to post here!!!

[Bob Muzio]

I don't have any but I'll e-mail the TRSC membership to see if there are any available.
Bob

[StagHunter]

Yes, it may be reprinted, no credit is needed.  I do have the photograph in hi-res if you or another chapter would like to run it in their newsletter as well.

Blake, I would like to take you up on that hi res image for my newsletter, if possible.

Thanks.

[Kurt O.]

Greetings friends. My first post here, don't know why I waited so long. I've owned a rather decrepit Doretti for quite some time. Actually it's my wife's car, a gift from her dad who used it as a daily driver for many years. I met Dorothy a number of times, the first over 20 years ago when Tom Householder managed to round up two Dorettis and their owners and brought them to her house. For several hours Dorothy entertained us with stories of Dorettis and TRs and sports cars in the '50s.

Dorothy was a marketing whiz and knew how to get press for her product. One of my favorites is the photo of the baby elephant in the back of a Triumph 10 Wagon. Dorothy not only designed much of the early advertising for the TRs, she was often in the ad herself! She fought many battles with Standard-Triumph to make changes to the cars that would make them more marketable in the US. As some of you may know, the colors offered initially for the TR2 were few and somewhat, umm, curious, can you say "Olive Yellow". Red and BRG were not offered and that is one of the first things Dorothy fought for. Dorothy and Cal Sales were also involved in sports car racing on the West Coast both as an entrant and sponsor. Some of the people who drove TRs for Dorothy and Cal Sales included Bob Drake and Phil Hill.

A great deal of the early success of the Triumph marque in the US was largley due to her efforts and abilities. And it was the US market that kept Standard-Triumph afloat for many years.

Cheers,
Kurt Oblinger
Redondo Beach, Ca

[Fournier]

Blake,

I'll take you up on your offer of a high resolution photo for the Capital Triumph Register newsletter.

Thanks,

Art Fournier
fournier@chesapeake.net

[trhouse]

Dorothy, in fact. was a major factor in the success of TRIUMPH . Most of us are second and third generation owners away from the early fifties and didn't experience the excitement of the Sports Car explotion world wide in the late forties and fifties. For me it has been a treat to re-live that era through the TR2 and Doretti research I've done over the past 40 years. Dorothy and Jim have been very gratious in the sharing their experiences with the presevationist and enthisiasts that still live the thrill. A few years back, before she took ill, I encouraged her to attend the San Diego Triumph meet to see the enthusiasm owners still have for the Marque she so succesfully promoted. She had a wonderfull time sharing her experiences with the participants. As a humble tribute I have put a photo of her in the Doretti and a TR up on my screen saver and invite the Triumph and Doretti world to do the same.

T.R. Householder
Swallow Doretti Vehicle Consultant
Vintage Triumph Register
Doretti.com
trhouse@greenapple.com

[Bob Muzio]

There was a request for photos of Dorothy Deen from the 2001 Triumphest in San Diego. The following were contributed by two TRSC members.

[Bob Muzio]

More Pix!