Hobbs connects with Milwaukee Mile
By Jordan Fox, for SBT
You’ve probably heard the voice of David Hobbs on radio and TV commercials promoting his well-known automobile dealership, David Hobbs Honda in Glendale. His British accent makes that voice unique, especially for Milwaukee. But unless you’re a motor sports fan, you may not know that the 64-year-old Hobbs has been a popular racing commentator on cable and network TV for more than 20 years. And that he had a successful, 30-year career as a professional race car driver.
This year, Hobbs is grand marshal of the Milwaukee Mile and media spokesman for Milwaukee Mile issues that include the track’s $20 million grandstand renovation and the event’s 100th anniversary season.
His talents include a mix of business acumen, announcing skills, and racing knowledge that comes from his first hand experiences behind the wheel.
His extensive driving career, which he began as a young man in England in 1959, includes four Indy 500 races – he finished fifth in 1974. He also was a dominant Formula 5000 driver in Europe.
While he was driving, Hobbs had a modest ownership equity in several BMW dealerships. Then he and several business associates approached the Honda Corp. about opening up a dealership in America. They ultimately chose Milwaukee and opened the doors of David Hobbs Honda in 1987.
The dealership was initially run by a team of managers because Hobbs hadn’t moved here yet and was still heavily involved in the racing world.
"But we lost quite a bit of our start-up capital over the next four years and things were getting a bit iffy," he says. "Our bankers insisted that I come on board and run things."
He took over in 1991 after concluding his racing career.
Although it was a bit hard at first, he recalls, David Hobbs Honda has made a profit ever since he became an active owner. The business had a lot of catching up to do and a lot of debt to pay down, but sales improved. Several years later, he brought his son, Gregory, into the business. The younger Hobbs is now general manager.
"Today we employ about 76 people and our payroll is around the $3 million mark," the senior Hobbs reveals.
"For a period of time, we were the biggest Honda dealership in town," he says. "Then competition became more aggressive, and now we and Russ Darrow are right behind the Wilde group and Honda City – No. 1 and No. 2 in the area. But we’re pretty happy. Our total sales volume is around $40 million. We almost doubled our sales objective of 850 new cars last year and sold 40 more used cars than our objective of 560."
In 1976, when in the middle of his active driving career, Hobbs started doing analysis work for CBS-TV. "I first worked the Pocono 500 race in Pennsylvania and never missed a race for them over the next 20 years. In 1987 I started working for ESPN as well. They broadcast more road races than CBS, and that was something I was interested in."
He then joined the Speed Channel, a cable network now in 58 million homes word wide. "Since my son is general manager of our business, that frees me up to travel and do the TV reporting," he explains. He does analysis for all the Formula One races – 17 of them a year – but doesn’t need to go to on site because of satellite coverage. "We report from studios in Charlotte, N.C. I also cover the Daytona and Le Mans races, and participate in a TV magazine show called The Legends of Motor Sports. In all, I do about 30 shows a year-short trips each, so I actually spend most of my time here helping my son run the dealership."
Hobbs inherited his love for cars from his father. "He was a mechanical engineering genius and a fruit farmer in Australia who had invented an automatic gear box. A consortium of Australian businessmen backed him and sent him to England with that invention in 1929. It was a long, hard road to get it going, and then World War II came along and the government asked him to stay and do developmental work for the war effort.
"After the war, he had a small factory to make the gear box, and at age 17 I was an engineering apprentice."
In 1958, Hobbs developed an interest in motorbikes and wanted to race them. His parents wouldn’t allow that but did let him race his mother’s Morris Oxford a year later. "My dad let me drive his Jag, with his automatic transmission, and the following year I drove a Lotus Elite, an advanced sports car for its era. It also had my dad’s automatic transmission."
In 1964, Hobbs and his wife and decided he would race professionally full-time. "Which I did until 1990," he says. "My first visit to Wisconsin was in 1964 as part of Team Lotus, an all-English racing team heading to the Road America Race at Elkhart Lake. I won my first race at Elkhart Lake seven years later."
July 11, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
