Remembering Automotive Pioneer Denise McCluggage

We were part of Volkswagen’s introduction of the Passat with 4Motion at the 2000 Geneva Auto Show, test driving the new full-time all-wheel-drive system all the way to Monte Carlo, where we were booked at the Hotel de Paris.

She was in the lobby as our auto writers’ group filed out to make a visit to the Prince of Monaco’s palace, calling to me as I passed by and asking if I would rather go for a drive.

It took me a millisecond to say “yes.” Who wouldn’t want to do that with the famous Denise McCluggage?

I was new to automotive reporting, although I had been a journalist for decades. She was a female pioneer racecar driver and auto writer and as fearless as the day is long.

She raced as often as she could back in the day, and in the best classes that the often-sexist race organizers would let her, says McCluggage’s longtime employer Autoweek in a homage to her this week, following her death on Wednesday.

“She won the GT class at Sebring in 1962 driving a Ferrari 250. She took fifth at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix in 1960. She won her class in the Rally Monte Carlo in a Ford Falcon.

“At other times, she was relegated to the Ladies Races that ran in support of the men. She won those, too, finishing first at Nassau, and at the Grand Prix of Venezuela in a Porsche 550.”

She also was there when Phil Hill won Le Mans, “driving around the track with him the night before while Phil daubed paint on all the apexes he was so worried he’d otherwise miss.

“She was there when (Juan Manuel) Fangio and (Stirling) Moss were winning Grand Prix races across Europe. She was a friend and confidant of the greatest names in racing.”

I knew none of this when I met Denise in Monte Carlo. I had seen her on a number of test-drive trips in California and Arizona, not too far from her home in Santa Fe, NM, but we had never been introduced.

She drove us along a section of the Le Mans race course that followed the Mediterranean coastline on our way to Nice, all the while filling my head with raucous stories of her many races and the famous drivers she knew from the early days.

We noodled around Nice for a while, where she once lived. On the drive back, we stopped to lunch at an elegant restaurant overlooking the sea, enjoying the guilty pleasure of playing hooky.

It was during this time that we bonded on a personal level, with more in common than you might suspect for two women 20 years apart in age.

She once had published a weekly newspaper in Killington, VT, one of my favorite places in the East. I too had published a weekly newspaper near Ann Arbor, MI, before taking a job as an editor at Ward’s.

We talked about the difficulties of running your own business, and the struggle for women journalists to be taken seriously in our early careers. And, of course, our love of cars.

Denise also told me she was thinking of starting an automotive blog as a place where colleagues could talk informally. I thought it was a great idea.

Eventually, we headed back to Monte Carlo to meet up with our group, certain our day had been unexpectedly satisfying for such a chance encounter.

Back home, we exchanged emails. She sent me her book. We stayed in touch for a while. But we never met up again. I stopped traveling for a desk job as editor of the new WardsAuto website.

Denise launched her blog and continued to live life fully. Among her many lifetime achievements, she was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2001 and the SCCA Hall of Fame in 2006.

She also won both the Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism and the Dean Batchelor Lifetime Achievement Award.

She’s gone now after 88 good years, but for her colleagues, friends and admirers, she will live on forever.

Well done, Denise, and thank you. You’ll always be my hero.