‘Mr Concours’: Promoting Kenya’s art of restoration

Bob Dewar, the man who has been at the centre of Concours d’elegance for five decades, has made a mark on the motor industry in Kenya. What needs a little exposition, however, is the idea that Bob Dewar has made an exemplary mark on our nation’s cultural consciousness. 

For 45 years, Bob has worked with “a series of very dedicated teams of committee members” to put together a motor show that is now the envy of motor sport federations across Africa. The global status of Concours rose in 2006 when it secured recognition from the standard-setting Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), making it an international event that attracts participants from Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Australia, Germany and Britain. 

Two weeks ago, I looked at the range of motorcycles, 70-plus classic cars, and old mechanical equipment spread across the sprawling exhibition area at the Ngong Racecourse. Car enthusiasts arrived as early as 8:30 am. National Youth Service (NYS) recruits directed traffic and managed security. A St. John’s Ambulance crew was on stand-by. The red-and-blue clad lads from Starehe Boys’ Centre were at hand, volunteering. 

The sun rose steadily in the sky, the numbers on the ground grew. Ngong Road was choking with cars, motorcycles and pedestrians of all ages. By 2pm, the after-Church crowd had swelled into a stifling throng, as intense as the afternoon heat. Everywhere you turned, there was a queue patiently waiting for something — a ticket, a hot-dog, a turn at the jumping castle, a peak at a restored Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, a soft drink, a toilet. There was music playing, art on display, costumes on parade and food stalls doing brisk business. 

GLORIFIED TRAINEE

This turn-out was nowhere near the volume of interest that Bob Dewar had in mind in 1970, when he suggested to the dealers of Alfa Romeo in Nairobi that they could mark the sale of their 100th car in Kenya by setting up a club for their car owners. Bob became a committee member of this new Alfa Romeo Owners’ Club which drew strength from a similar club in Britain.

But Bob’s personal ties in Britain were few. He was born in Nairobi and educated at Kilimani Primary and Nairobi Primary Schools. Bob still remembers the austerity of the World War Two years, how “everyone was making do and when new cars came in after the war, it was very exciting”. After high school at the then Prince of Wales (now Nairobi School), he went to Britain to study Law at the University of Oxford. “Halfway through the course, I found the law did not suit me and I did not suit the law”.

His parents had made great sacrifices, so Bob finished his course, earned an Honours degree but remained certain that he did not want to practice law. He got “a job at Caltex as a glorified management trainee … I was delighted when they posted me to Kenya because by that time, I knew that Kenya was the only place I wanted to be.”

That was in 1958. Chevron, Caltex’s holding company, was in the league of companies dominating the global petroleum industry. It was the right place for Bob to acquire a taste for public relations. In 1969, when Caltex restructured its operations in East Africa, Bob opted out and established Bob Dewar Publicity. Caltex and Alfa Romeo were his first clients, giving him a precious opportunity to pursue his passion for cars.

When Bob convinced Alfa Romeo to set up an Owners Club, he didn’t have a five-year strategic plan or an endowment fund. All he had was a passion for motor sports.  To mark its first anniversary as a club of 20 Alfa Romeo lovers, Bob suggested an exhibition similar to the Concours event in Pebble Beach, California. They displayed 12 Alfa Romeos at The Spread Eagle Hotel off Thika Road — the location that is now occupied by Safari Park Hotel.

In 1981, the Club decided to do something bigger to celebrate its 10th anniversary. With the help of Peter Hughes, the head of the Competition Department at the Automobile Association of Kenya (AA), the event was opened to all makes of cars and moved to the Embakasi motor racing circuit (where the Container Depot now stands).

Embakasi had been demarcated as a recreational area for Nairobi with several sports fields. The boundary around these fields was a race track with a grid and a pit area where the judging line could assess the entries.  

AMAZING VENUE

Hughes underlined the new goals of Concours. “We need to present motor sport as a responsible group, looking after machinery and being conscious of road safety and standards”. He urged Bob to be patient, not to expect more than 15 entries for their first all-models competition. They got a whooping 25 entries and over 1,000 spectators!

By 1989, Concours had 50 entries. It had opened up to motorcycles and what Bob calls “the event’s magic”, drew in a stream of volunteers. When the Kenya Motor Sports Federation was established, it took the place of AA at Concours. Peter Hughes handed over to Vic Preston Senior, a Safari Rally legend. Preston echoed the volunteer spirit: “I have enjoyed motor sports, now its my turn to help run this event”.

When Embakasi was converted into a commercial space, Concours faced a difficult time. Preston suggested to Bob that the Ngong Racecourse might be a suitable venue. Bob scheduled an appointment. The Jockey Club was fairly prosperous and they were not very receptive: “Well, yes, we might manage a weekend sometime in April (in the pouring rain, thought Bob) or perhaps July (with the overcast weather, Bob mused)”. But he was hardly in a position to refuse, so they took July.

Their first year at Ngong Racecourse drew in 3,000 people! “Nothing was coping,” Bob remembers. “Catering couldn’t cope, there weren’t enough toilets and crowd control was quite difficult.” But it turned out to be an amazing venue, with the stands where spectators sit and watch the parade of cars, and a track where a judging ramp can be erected to great effect.

1998 was another turning point in the growth of Concours. Roger Pierce, head of Motor Sport South Africa, attended the show. He was so taken with it that the following year, he organised a team of car enthusiasts — the African Odyssey — to drive up from Johannesburg.

It was also in 1998 that Bob learnt that British Airways employees had a Classic Car and Motorcycle Club. He convinced the airline to publicise its world cargo operations by airfreighting a member’s car to Concours. They opted to fly over a motorcycle which went on to win the first prize in the bike category at the 1999 Concours.

Concours was sponsored by Car and General for 18 years. Other sponsors since then include, Kencell, Schweppes (Coca-Cola), Access Kenya, Galleria Mall, Jubilee Insurance and CBA Bank, all of who value Concours as a social event and a tourist attraction. 

“Kenya is more than beach and bush”, says Bob. The Kenya Tourism Board understands this and has helped foster the links with Uganda, where, five years ago, Bob and his Concours team helped to establish a similar event. Sometimes, Concours has had as many as 28 entries from outside Kenya. Participants come with crews. After the event, they stay and enjoy the rest of what Kenya has on offer. 

These visitors are not the only form in which Concours offers a boom to our economy. There is a whole cottage industry of mechanics, jua kali welders, and spray-painters that has grown from the keen work of maintenance and restoration that is required for a classic car. 

Car dealers play their part in sourcing spare parts but the Internet has levelled that playing field and car enthusiasts establish contacts all over the world in their passion for preservation. Experienced car repair masters are sharing this restoration stage with a bevy of tailors who reupholster interiors with a sharp eye for the stitching detail. 

“Having money helps but it is not essential” to the passion of restoring our motor heritage, says Bob. The Alfa Romeo Owners Club has inspired the growth of several other car clubs, including Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW. These clubs forge a new socio-cultural identity away from our old markers of race and tribe. They stage drives and charity activities around the country.  

EMOTIONAL LABOUR

Indeed, Concours is a rich classroom experience that compliments the heritage work of the National Museums of Kenya in an atmosphere of fun and games. I was drawn to the Mercedes Benz Owners Club. As I stared at the row of W114, W115, W123, W124, W210 and W211 series of what is today called the E-class, I thought about identity as a sum total of past and present. From a design point of view, the Mercedes changes every few years, and yet, it never really changes. The front grill curves slightly in one model and straightens out more in another. The round light feature might be encased deep inside a rectangular headlight or it might form the outward perimeter. The past keeps coming back to shape the present, to haunt the future, to stamp the car’s identity and with it, generations of over-awed Kenyans bridge the divides of race, tribe, age and class.

Very often when we think of car enthusiasts, we pigeon-hole them as people who enjoy speed, or as “petrol heads.” But cars are a work of art, too.

Those like Bob Dewar who devote themselves to exhibiting cars are involved in the kind of emotional labour that we primarily associate with the arts. Cars elicit our emotions because of the way they look, the way they sound, their feel and the national (hi)stories behind their making, their marketing and their ownership over the years.

In a country where a culture of extravagant waste and putrid exhibitionism has become our ideas of what it means to be successful, men like Bob Dewar remind us that real value lies in looking after what we already have, in patient preservation and conscientious maintenance. 

Bob makes another valid point: “Classic cars are a form of investment”. Concours now includes a classic car market where buyers comb the field for rare gems. You may not fetch a great price for your 1951 Rolls Royce in Kenya, but in England it becomes very valuable.

This year, Eng Peter Wanday was elected chairman of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club. Bob Dewar will remain as vice-chair on that six-member committee that works on voluntary terms to stage the Concours. There are no sitting allowances and no bench-marking trips. This is the Kenya we want. A Kenya where individuals build a sense of community without any expectation of monetary rewards. 

As technology grows in leaps and bounds that make today’s gadget obsolete junk tomorrow, I look forward to the day when our idea of heritage will be dynamic enough to recognize the role that selfless men like Bob Dewar have played. He has expanded our economy; publicised our country in a new and positive light; chipped away at the barriers of race, negative ethnicity, social class and helped us to forge a new sense of who we are and how we can better relate with mechanical and artistic genius, and the things that our forefathers invested in.