Afternoon all,
This is the story of the Dobson & Gerard Motor Company.
James Dobson & Kevin Gerard created the DOGE Motor Company in early 1993, in a small city in South Australia.
Their plan was to create a range of small and mid size sedans and coupes to withstand Australia’s harsh conditions.
After many designs and different ideas were made and scrapped, the final prototype for the Strider coupe was completed in July 1994.
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James ans Kevin also worked on designing their own engines to power their upcoming range, the first completed being a 4-cylinder engine loosely based on the Toyota 22R.They figured it would be a better choice as the 22R is super reliable, durable and reasonably economical.
The engine, dubbed the D24-E, featured a Cast iron block mated to an Alloy cylinder head with an 8V SOHC configuration, as well as Single-Point Fuel Injection.
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The production version of the D24-E produced 101kW of power and 195Nm of torque, at a reasonable 2900rpm.
They decided that the D24 would be fitted to the Strider coupe as its base model configuration, coupled to a 5-speed manual borrowed from the Ford Falcon, with plans for a 6-cylinder version to follow.
After much testing and tweaking, the Strider S was released onto the market at the Adelaide Auto Show in January 1995 with an asking price of $23,990 drive away, and the public praised the Strider on its modern looks, interior finish and refinement. Sales were good for the first 6 months, selling around 10 per week around the country for the first 6 months, and Doge had hired a manufacturing team to hand-build the Strider while Dobson & Gerard worked on a new 4-door sedan and a new 3.0L 6-cyl engine.
But then, things started to go wrong.
There were reports of D24 engines breaking timing chain guides after 50,000km and requiring chain and guide replacements, which had to be covered by the 3 year warranty that Doge has on the Strider.
The Direct Acting OHC layout has mechanical adjustment and lots of customers were complaining after 12 months that the engines were very rattly. Doge countered this by instigating valve clearance adjustments every 30,000km service.
There were reports of underbody components breaking on rough bitumen roads, trim plastics fading in the sun, terrible cabin road noise due to inadequate sound deadening, even some customers being locked in their cars when the central locking malfunctioned and locking the doors.
Dobson & Gerard warranted every claim up until the warranty ended, borrowing more and more money, hoping that the worst was over. In Feb 1998, Doge released the Strider 6 at a high cost of $34,990, with a DOHC 2.0L inline 6 producing just 114kW and 171Nm.
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by now the original car design was over 3 years old, and although every problem has been ironed out, and there was public praise for the silky smooth and fantastic sounding D2FE 6-cyl, it was too late for the Doge Motor Company. on October 1999, with total sales of just 896 Strider S and 109 Strider 6’s, and before any new models could be released, Dobson & Gerard filed for bankruptcy, and the company was closed, the last remaining Striders in caryards sold at cost price to fleet buyers.
Dobson went on to work for Mazda to help design their new 4WD ute, and Gerard went to Nissan, also as a designer. Rumour has it that the S15 Silvia took design cues from the Strider…
in 2012, an online article surfaced stating rumours that Doge may possibly be coming back from the ashes with new models, no-one knows who will be behind the company when it resurfaces.
(apologies about the bad quality photos, my PC has to run Automation on low settings lol)
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lol
