DIFFLOCKEDTHE REGISTRY
Builder, Restorer, Restomod builder · Everton Hills, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Jack Oliver Dobson

British-born classic Land Rover specialist running a one-man workshop at Everton Hills in northern Brisbane, restoring, rebuilding and recommissioning Land Rovers from the 1948 originals through to 2015. He posts his workshop work as @jackoliverdobson and his own vehicles as 'Dobbo Down Under', and writes a column for Land Rover Monthly.

History

Jack Oliver Dobson dates his interest to his parents' 1970s Series III, named Prue, more than three decades ago; he had his own Land Rover by sixteen and spent a year rebuilding it on a gravel driveway in Cornwall, and still owns it over twenty years later. He has spent more than 25 years rescuing, rebuilding and recommissioning classic Land Rovers, and after moving to Australia set up a workshop dedicated to the marque, now at Unit 3, 29/31 Timms Road, Everton Hills, in northern Brisbane, taking on everything from ground-up rebuilds to recommissioning and subtle modification.

His own fleet doubles as a test bed: customer modifications are generally tried first on 'Old Girl', his 109-inch Series IIIA — the LED headlights and combined sidelight-indicator front end among them. A 1950 80-inch he rebuilt took Best 4x4 and Car of the Show at the 2024 Brisbane All British Day and was invited to the 2025 Noosa Concours d'Elegance. The third vehicle, and the one behind the Difflocked model, is 'Tray-back', the 109 ute he also calls the shop truck: bought for its near-perfect bodywork despite an incredibly rusty chassis and originally destined to be broken for parts, it instead received what he calls a patina restoration, preserving the weathered exterior while renewing or rebuilding almost everything else. In 2024 it gained a fully rebuilt Rover V8 — an installation he found unusually awkward because the truck has a six-cylinder-style chassis and bulkhead — along with a vented disc brake conversion and Maxxis Mud Terrain tyres on One Tonne replica steel wheels.

Alongside the workshop he is Australian ambassador for Exmoor Trim, Maxxis Tyres, Kincrome, Autosparks and LOF Clutches, and a columnist for Land Rover Monthly, writing vehicle reviews and product pieces.

An earlier Australian venture may lie behind the Brisbane workshop: Silodrome's 2021 feature on 'The Beachrunner', a Series 2A restomod, describes Oliver & Dobson, a Sydney restoration partnership of British origin whose members it names as Jack Dobson and a co-founder. No source consulted states outright that this is the same person or that the Brisbane workshop succeeded it, so the connection is noted here rather than asserted. No founding date for the present business is published, which is why this record stays at draft.

Vehicles in this registry (2)

Sources & citations

Maker record updated 2026-09-10T05:17:07.279Z · status: draft