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Two Female Pioneers in Automotive Journalism

There are a lot of famous women in the automotive history books and these two definitely deserve to be there too, but they're not car inventors, race drivers or automotive designers.

At JPS Collision Inc., we are happy to share this blog with our customers in Newark, NJ about Jean Jennings and Denise McCluggage--two female pioneers who changed the world of automotive journalism and whose work is highly-respected for its excellence.

Jean Jennings, President and Editor of Automobile Magazine

You might remember Jennings for being Good Morning America’s automotive correspondent for six years in the late 1990s or maybe as the former President and Editor of the highly regarded Automobile Magazine. In addition, Jennings is currently the Editor of the popular automotive blog JeanKnowsCars.com. A former cab driver and Chrysler test driver, Jennings edited the 1998 Road Trips, Head Trips, and Other Car-Crazed Writings.

Jennings has been writing about cars, racing and the automotive industry for more than 30 years now, having learned about cars from her dad who was the Editor of Automotive News. At age 18, Jennings bought a used vehicle, painted it yellow and joined the iconic Yellow Cab Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan as one of their best drivers. By age 23, Jennings was working at Chrysler’s test track as a test driver, as well as a welder and a mechanic in the carmaker's impact lab.

In 1980, Jennings was hired as a featured writer at Car and Driver Magazine, and five years later, she departed the magazine to help establish Automobile Magazine as its very first Executive Editor, where she became Editor-in-Chief in 2000 and President six years later.

Denise McCluggage,  AutoWeek

Always a chronic dabbler in things she loved, such as car racing, journalism, writing books and taking incredible photographs, Denise McCluggage has made a name in both motorsports and journalism.

When McCluggage retired from professional car racing in the late 1960s, she began focusing on her passion for journalism by creating an automotive magazine called AutoWeek. She is well-known for being a true pioneer of equality for women in this country when it comes to car racing and writing about it. After She graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Mills College in Oakland, California, McCluggage started her career as a news writer at the San Francisco Chronicle. 

While writing for the Chronicle in the 1950s, McCluggage met Briggs Cunningham, the man who built the first American vehicles to race at the legendary Le Mans. She bought her first sports car shortly after that and started racing at small club events.

In 1954, Jennings moved to New York to work at the New York Herald Tribune as a sports writer. She soon replaced her MG 4 with a Jaguar XK140 and began racing professionally while earning the respect of the other male racers. Her signature look was a white helmet with pink dots. Her racing achievements included winning both the grand touring category at Sebring in a Ferrari 250 GT in 1961, and a huge class win in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in a Ford Falcon. She drove Porsches, Maseratis and a wide range of other race cars of many marques, often with another woman driver, Pinkie Rollo. Jennings ended her racing career in the late 1960s and pursued her writing career full-time once more.

Sources: SEMA News, Automotive News and SF Chronicle