The wonderful world of inspirational women
Always always delighted to commentate at the Prescott Hill Climb when the Vintage Sports Car Club hold their annual short course hill clinb competition each August. This time Bugatti Owners Club Chairman, Nicholas Upton and I discuss Kay Petre and so much more. The coverage begins at 3hours, fifty nine minutes and fourty seconds – […]
So delighted to be invited on the Historic Racing News Podcast to talk about women racing drivers in the run up to Le Mans 100 years. I am about 50mins into the podcast after the amazing news about the auction prices. Enjoy. xx
High upon the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, a sandstorm blinded many of the drivers who were on the 1937 Morocco Rally. Mrs Marguerite Mareuse and Anne Cecile Itier were racing in a Cabriolet for the Hanomag team, unaware that this German team were also conducting an intelligence mission for the Abwehr, analysing the French Military […]
The Virtual Bugatti Day conversation about some amazing Bugatti ladies…
The 2023 Monte Carlo Rally is beginning to take shape. For the first time in the event’s history, five mountain passes in a row will create the longest special stage. Col de ’LOrme, Col de L’Albie, Col de Braus, Col Saint-Jean and Col de Castillon will provide twists and turns for the drivers. It is […]
The year is 1965 and we are at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. The sun is bright with a thin layer of heat hovering above the crystal ground as the Green Monster Cyclops Jet car reaches the speed of 315.74mph. The driver is Betty Skelton, the First Lady of Firsts. In this edition for the […]
In this next instalment of women in motorsport, I would like to introduce you to Mrs Elsie Wisdom, known to her friends and family as ‘Bill,’ a nickname given by her brothers at an early age. Growing up with many of them, Elsie (then Elsie Gleed) wanted to drive fast, and started with a motorcycle […]
It is exceedingly rare for a rider to be as fast on two wheels as four, with racer Sir John Surtees remaining the only person to have won World Championships by both motorcycle and car. Tazio Nuvolari is among the same rank, having achieved wins in individual races on both two and four wheels. The […]
I am so excited to share the story of a remarkable lady: the Honourable Mrs Victor Bruce. Mildred epitomises everything about the trailblazer of the period of the Bright Young Things in the Roaring Twenties. Mildred Bruce, also known as Mary Petre, was born to the youngest brother of Lord Petre of Ingatestone Hall and […]
Lara Platman from the Bugatti Owners Club UK is joined by Jan Kralik from the Bugatti Club of the Czech Republic to talk about the life of Madame Junek. Lara says, “We talk a little about the wonderful life of Madame Junek and towards the end of the conversation I realised we only touched on […]
Previously seen on: Overland Journal Europe. Wayward Women – A Guide to Women Travellers by Jane Robinson Oxford University Press – ISBN – 0-19-280233-X There is always a book beside my bed, well a pile of them actually, but one of at the top of the pile these past few months has been Wayward Women. […]
Previously seen on: Overland Journal Europe. Fay Taylour – Queen of the Speedway By Brian Belton Panther Publishing – ISBN – 09547912 – 4 – X I picked this book up at an open air autojumble in the summer. Quite apt really. I am always after books on fascinating women. Written by a chap – […]
Lapping Brooklands at 134.24mph in 1935 in the ten and a half-litre V12 Delage, secured Kay Petre as one of the fastest ladies on the racing circuit. The Delage had been specially adapted for her for as her regular race car, by extending the pedals and installing a raised seat in order for to see […]
In this third of the series of lady racing drivers, may I present to you Madame Elizabeth Junek, (Eliška Junková), born in 1900 and raised in Olomouc on the outskirts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a passion for world languages and travel. Elizabeth met her future husband Cenek Junek, a Prague banker who, competed in […]
As soon as Michelin and Dunlop fitted rubber tyres to wooden wheels, speed became the must-have accessory. This edition will introduce some of the women who pioneered this new fashion. I have always thought of my research as Mirror Lipstick Manoeuvre, but I think you will find that these women are far more pioneering – […]
Imagine Charles Rolls, Vincenzo Lancia and the brothers Marcel and Louis Renault, rush past your eyes amongst the Paris Madrid Rally then fast in pursuit comes Chamille Du Ghast, the first female racing driver. Hellé Delangle carefully gripping the hand of her school teacher as she watched on the side of the road in the […]
First published with Frank Magazine Once the home to RAF Westhampnett West Sussex now, in recent years known as the Goodwood Aerodrome, where for me I associate the Estate of the Duke of Richmond with jam packed racing weekends with friends. However, sitting here on this glorious spring day with Pilot Mags Cunningham by the […]
Previously seen in Frank Magazine We are sitting in the kitchen of the award winning and architecturally acclaimed Water Tower in Munstead, Surrey, where Elspeth now lives with a full restoration on it after purchasing in 1989. The ceilings are really high, and our talk is echoing around the hexagonal structure, Elspeth reminisces about how […]
As seen in Frank Magazine August 2020 Edition When I was asked to write about a woman from history, I immediately thought of Mildred Bruce who, regular readers to Frank magazine may have noticed I had mentioned her previously, but then I thought about all the other women, in one way or another have shaped […]
As seen in Frank Magazine June/July 2020 edition From the moment that the second car rolled off the production line, Henry Ford proclaimed, let’s go racing, well that’s how the saying goes at least. More recently, car manufacturers that put their cars into race series said, ‘Race on Sunday sell on Monday’, and this is […]
Previously published in the March edition of Frank Magazine about my fearless friend Katarina Kyvalova. I have known Katarina for a few years, we first met at Goodwood Revival where, I was delighted to meet another female racer – and also to see her in the big show stopper races of the Tourist Trophy, with […]
As seen in Frank Magazine October edition One of only a handful of Ladies to hold full membership of the prestigious British Racing Drivers’ Club and is currently President of the British Women Racing Drivers Club, Lorina McLaughlin is one of the UK’s most successful Female Racing Drivers. Currently McLaughlin drives the ex- Michael Schumacher […]
Previously seen in Frank Magazine August Edition I first met Maria Costello MBE about fifteen years ago at Goodwood Revival, in the holding paddock alongside the classic motorbike she was about to race in the Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy, we briefly discussed if there were any other women racing on the grid that weekend. To this […]
Previously seen in Frank Magazine: June Edition Mrs Christian Miller, a well-established lady bought a fold up bicycle, a tent and a saddle bag and cycled 4,500 miles across America just after WW2, whilst earlier Mrs Edith Fraser Benn, in 1901, rode side saddle from India to Persia, a 600 mile camel ride with her […]
Previously seen in Frank Magazine: May Edition In a world currently celebrating empowerment of the woman, photojournalist Lara Platman wants to remind us that women have been racing and driving fast since the invention of the combustion engine. Fearless women such as Camille de Gast who, in 1903, became the first woman racing driver and […]
The passing of the road transport lighting bill came in to force on Sunday 22nd April 1928, required a uniform lighting regulation throughout the country. During the hours of darkness, every motor car must be accompanied with two lamps showing a red light to the rear. The hours of darkness are considered to be a […]
The Motorists Face How to look after it when touring is a problem that besets most women. Looking after a wind -blown face. Put on a cheap chiffon gauze scarf over ones hat and may be thrown once soiled. If the face is prepared before the journey then at the end it ought to be […]
A concise series of articles about car insurance continued throughout The Lady in the 1920’s, with the increase in owners taking their cars abroad along with additional cars on the road, accidents became a regular occurrence between two drivers, both claiming the rights of the road. The Highway Code as law had not come in […]
Another part to this series where we look back at The Lady archives and investigate these historical articles whilst comparing them to how women look after their cars and generally at motoring today. This lovely page tells us the ideal way to manoeuvre a car amongst the road, at junctions, and passing cars. Which car […]
Martin Haven bumped into Photographer and Author Lara Platman at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2018 and they had a little chin wag about the Festival and what Lara was up to at the moment.
Martin Haven bumped into Photographer and Author Lara Platman at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2018 and they had a little chin wag about the Festival and what Lara was up to at the moment.
Springtime maintenance for the car looks at using thinner lubricants for the engines the fan belt may have also been disconnected during the winter months and it is a perfect time to reconnect it. Also make sure one has removed the radiator muff for the spring. Whilst the winter is quite a reverse, pop on […]
Women have been racing and driving fast since the invention of the combustion engine. Intrepid ladies such as Camille de Gast who, in 1903, became the first woman racing driver, and before her Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz (of Mercedes Benz), who in 1888, was the first woman to drive a motor vehicle […]
Lara Platman chats to Daisy Sadler in Lara’s 1964 Series 2a Land Rover. Lara and Daisy soon realise the noise of the engine is too loud for them to talk over, so Lara pulls over and they have a far more peaceful and lovely chat at the side of a road on top of a […]
Lara Platman chats to Daisy Sadler in Lara’s 1964 Series 2a Land Rover. Lara and Daisy soon realise the noise of the engine is too loud for them to talk over, so Lara pulls over and they have a far more peaceful and lovely chat at the side of a road on top of a […]
A chatty little handbook for all women who motor or who want to motor Dorothy Levitt’s The Woman and the Car: A chatty little handbook for all women who motor or who want to motor by Dorothy Levitt, was published in 1909. It perfectly captures the adventurous, even reckless, spirit of these early girl racers. Here […]
We look forward to an exciting Moss Trophy, where Katarina Kyvalova in car number 11, 1960 Austin Healey 3000 Mk1, with co pilot Jeremy Welch, and Holly Franchitti in car number 17, 1963 AC Ace-Ford for Ten Tenths Ltd with co pilot James Wood, will be racing this weekend at the Goodwood 76th Member’s Meeting. Good […]
Always on the look out for female racing drivers, past or present, I discovered a lady who seems to have missed my radar. Baroness Maria Antonietta Avanzo (1889 – 1977) was the first Italian female racetrack driver and “the most famous Italian woman racing driver of the inter-war period”. She competed in numerous events throughout her career, including […]
Thick fog for fifty miles around Carlisle, mist on the Yorkshire Moors, heavy snow falling from London onwards… and that is before arriving in Monte Carlo after 70 hours of non-stop driving from John O’ Groats, a total of seventeen hundred miles for the Monte Carlo Rally in 1927. Mrs Bruce took it upon herself […]
