Ogle

David Ogle Limited, Letchworth, Hertfordshire.

David Ogle MBE, DSC (1922–1962) was a British industrial designer and car designer. He founded the design consultancy company Ogle Design in 1954.

He was educated at Rugby School and briefly studied Law at University of Oxford. In 1940 he joined the Fleet Air Arm. He flew the Supermarine Seafire in operations in North Africa, the Mediterranean and in the south of France. He rose to the rank of Lt Commander and was awarded the DSC and the MBE.

At the conclusion of the war he attended the Central School of Art and Design in London, studying industrial design. He subsequently joined Murphy Radio. He left Murphy in 1948 to join Bush Radio. It was while at Bush that he was responsible for the iconic design of the TR82 transistor radio.

He also designed the Reliant Scimitar.

David Ogle set up a design company in 1954, undertaking industrial design work such as televison and radio cabinets. He hoped to rival the Italian carozzeria and offered his first car in 1960. This was a rounded 4 seater fibreglass-bodied coupe with tailfins. It's basis was the Riley 1.5, from which the platform was taken and then reinforced by a tubular structure by Tojeiro. The suspension and 68bhp 1.5 litre engine were taken dirctly from the Riley. Only eight of these were made up until 1962, when a new classic Ogle Mini appeared, the SX1000. This was one of the first attempts at rebodying the Mini, in this case with with a dumpy fibreglass coupe shell seating 2 to 4 passengers in a luxurious interior. The high cost of manufacture, coupled with David Ogle's death at the wheel of an SX1000, brought production to a halt after 66 cars had been built.

David died at the wheel of an SX1000 on the way to race it at Brands Hatch 0n the 25th May 1962. He was late for the race which had been delayed in anticipation of his arrival, when word was recieved that he had crashed the SX1000 on the A1 at Digswell Hill. As a result of the accident in which David was trapped in the burning car all future fibreglass cars had to have a fire retardant in the mix.

The Management of David Ogle Limited was taken on by John Ogier after David's death and subsequently passed to Tom Karen.