Share This
Spread the word
"He moved in next door a few years back — and brought a selection of supercars to our tiny Roberts Creek."
Roberts Creek is a small, quiet community on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. It has a general store, a pub, a yoga studio, and a beach. It is not, historically speaking, a place where you expect to hear the sound of a Lamborghini Aventador coming down the road. And then Robbie Dickson moved in.
Robbie is a British-Canadian engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and car collector who has owned hundreds of automobiles in his lifetime. He co-founded Area 27 — Canada's only Formula One-grade racetrack — with Jacques Villeneuve. He founded the Hublot Diamond Rally, an invite-only charity rally of 200 supercars from Vancouver to Whistler along the Sea-to-Sky Highway. He helped De Beers open its first jewellery store in Canada. He invented an auxiliary air brake system for supercars. He is the CEO of Firgelli Automations, which he founded in 2002. He is now in White Rock.
He is also, by any measure, a man who knows how to have a best day.
Hundreds of Cars. One Obsession.
Robbie Dickson became interested in supercars after watching the film Cannonball Run as a child in the UK. It is the kind of origin story that sounds like a joke until you see the garage. The first brand-new car he ever purchased was a custom Blu Glauco Lamborghini Aventador Roadster. He has owned hundreds of cars since.
In 2011, The Vancouver Sun profiled his $1,000,000 garage renovation in Crescent Beach — complete with 120 spotlights, a full-size bar, and a lifelike fiberglass model of Michael Schumacher's F1 Ferrari hanging from the ceiling. The garage was not just a place to park cars. It was a statement about what it means to love something completely.
When he moved to Roberts Creek — and then to White Rock — the cars came with him. The Sunshine Coast had never seen anything quite like it.
Area 27 — Named for Jacques
Canada's only Formula One-grade racetrack, built on Osoyoos Indian Band land near Oliver, BC in the South Okanagan.
Robbie Dickson's love of the film Cannonball Run eventually led him to a conversation with Bill Drossos and Canadian Formula One World Champion Jacques Villeneuve. Together, they decided to build a racetrack. Not a karting circuit. A full-sized, GPS-designed, Formula One-grade racing club.
They negotiated a long-term lease with the Osoyoos Indian Band in the South Okanagan. GPS-guided earthmovers traced the layout of the 4.83-kilometre track. 12,139 feet of concrete was poured for the track and its barriers. The track is named Area 27 — after Jacques Villeneuve's Formula One racing number. It now operates as a full racing club with an on-site racing school and member facilities.
De Beers — Canada's First
When De Beers Diamond decided to open its first jewellery store in Canada, Robbie Dickson was there to help make it happen. As a venture capitalist and angel investor, he has supported businesses at the intersection of luxury, innovation, and Canadian commerce — and De Beers Canada was one of his most significant contributions.
The De Beers name needs no introduction. Founded in 1888 by Cecil Rhodes, it is the world's leading diamond company — responsible for the phrase "A Diamond is Forever" and for establishing the modern diamond engagement ring as a cultural institution. Robbie helped bring that institution to Canada.
Hublot — The Art of Fusion
The Diamond Rally's title sponsor is Hublot Vancouver — one of the world's most prestigious Swiss watch brands, known for its "Art of Fusion" philosophy that combines traditional watchmaking with unconventional materials. The Hublot-Diamond Rally partnership is a natural one: both are about the pursuit of excellence, the celebration of engineering, and the understanding that the best things in life are worth doing properly.
— Advertisement —
The Inventor Behind the Wheel
Before the rallies and the racetracks, Robbie Dickson was an engineer. He graduated from the University of Wales with an engineering degree and worked for BMW, Isuzu, and Ford before being recruited as an engine designer by Westport Innovations in Vancouver. It was during a race event at CFB Cold Lake in Alberta that he nearly crashed — misjudging the braking distance at the end of a runway — and turned that near-miss into an invention.
He designed an auxiliary air brake system for supercars — based on the air brake technology used in trains — that engages automatically when speeds greater than 100km/h are reached and the foot brake is applied. He founded Attivo Design to market it, and the technology was manufactured by Firgelli Automations, the linear actuator company he founded in 2002 and continues to lead as CEO.
Firgelli Automations is not a side project. It is a serious engineering company that makes precision linear actuators and control devices used in industrial, automotive, and consumer applications worldwide. Robbie runs it from BC. He also invests in clean-tech and zero-emission technology companies — including Etalim Inc. — because the same engineering mind that builds supercars also understands that the future of transportation needs to be sustainable.
— Advertisement —
Best Days Ever Scorecard
ROBBIE DICKSON
Robbie moved in next door in Roberts Creek and brought a selection of supercars to our tiny community. That is not a sentence I expected to write about life on the Sunshine Coast. But that is Robbie — he has a way of making the extraordinary seem completely natural. He built a Formula One racetrack with Jacques Villeneuve. He helped De Beers open in Canada. He runs 200 supercars up the Sea-to-Sky for charity every year. And he does all of it with the same quiet engineering mind that once invented a better brake system because he nearly drove off a runway. Best Day Ever.
Share This
Spread the word