Dorothy Deen and the Doretti--not Italian sportscar but based on the Triumph TR2.

By Jonathan A. Stein

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.

The glamorous Deen often modeled for publicity photos, such as this shoot for the early TR3

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.

Presiding over a ribbon-cutting with an unknown associate.

The next business venture forever changed Dorothyıs life. Unable to find high-quality accessories for her MG and her fatherıs 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 Dorothyıs name, and turned it into the Italianate “Doretti” .

Dorothy Deen proves that although Standard’s station wagon was small, it still had plenty of trunk room.

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.

The comely Deen not only managed the West Coast Standard-Triumph distributor, she personally promoted the cars, like the TR3A.

She then became the 45th woman in the world to earn her helicopter pilotıs license and later co-owned and managed an aircraft dealership. She later returned to UCLA to become a para legal on her intended completed--route to becoming an attorney.

Far more than a pretty face, Dorothy Deen ran several small manufacturing business, distributed Standard-Triumph, Doretti and Peerless cars for the Western United States and went on to operate an aircraft dealership.

Along the way she declined Max Hoffmanıs 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.