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Jean Jennings, who wrote with gusto about cars, dies at the age of 70

    The first time Jean Jennings confronted Mexican federal police, they had just arrested one of her friends for public urination.

    It was 1983 and she was part of an eight-vehicle test drive along the length of Baja California, which she had joined as a writer for Car and Driver magazine. Thinking quickly, she called her friend a cerdo – pig – and persuaded the police to fine her.

    A few days later, police caught them speeding outside La Paz, near the bottom of the peninsula; she wriggled out of a ticket by showing officers her Datsun's fancy electronic voting system. Later she was arrested when she ran over a cow. This time she talked a cop into letting her ride in his police car, gave his girlfriend a manicure and got away with a $50 fine.

    Ms. Jennings, who died on December 16 at the age of 70, was not only one of the best writers in automotive journalism; she was also the most interesting in every way. She won a demolition derby, rode a motorcycle across China and crossed New Zealand in a 1916 Benz, all during her 30-year career, first at Car and Driver and then at Automobile, where she was editor-in-chief.

    Ms. Jennings had no formal journalism training. But she knew cars: Before joining Car and Driver in 1981, she had driven a taxi, repaired engines and tested a Chrysler prototype at the company's proving grounds outside Detroit.

    Tim Jennings, her husband, said she died of Alzheimer's disease in a long-term care facility.

    Cars, and writing about cars, were (and still are) largely a man's world, but Ms. Jennings had no problem making that world her own.

    “The first big blow almost threw me into the backseat,” she wrote in a 1983 column about that demo derby. “When the car wouldn't start, I discovered that the little alligator clip that directed the juice from the battery to the ignition coil had come loose. I reconnected everything and ran in time to see a gaping trunk heading towards port at a speed of ten knots.”

    Ms. Jennings was hired at Car and Driver by David E. Davis Jr., a renowned figure in automotive journalism. In 1986 he brought her along after Rupert Murdoch offered to support a new type of car magazine, Automobile, which was aimed at more discerning readers and featured writers such as PJ O'Rourke, David Halberstam and Jim Harrison. Mrs. Jennings proved more than able to keep up with them.

    “She and David were the only ones who wrote anything other than fanboy notes,” Kathleen Hamilton, a childhood friend who later worked for her at Automobile, said in an interview. “It was enthusiastic writing and she brought adventure to the automotive world reader.”

    Ms. Jennings has also contributed to non-automotive publications such as Esquire and New Woman, tailoring her words to the audience.

    For New Woman she wrote about how to negotiate with car salesmen; for Esquire she wrote sentences like: “If your ass is small, your heart is big and your driver's license is open to a few extra points, then the most exciting car on sale in America is surely this little terror, the first all-new car that is for sale in America. Lotus in the US in 15 years.”

    She was an automotive correspondent for “Good Morning America,” talked motorcycles with Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” and taught Oprah Winfrey and her audience how to change a tire.

    Ms. Jennings later moved to the editorship and eventually replaced Mr. Davis as editor-in-chief of Automobile. She continued to build the magazine's readership and writing stable; Under her leadership, Automobile became the first automotive publication to win a National Magazine Award in 2009, for a column by Jamie Kitman.

    By then, Ms. Jennings had become part of the automotive establishment, befriending drivers, hanging out with car executives and flying around the world testing Ferraris.

    “There wasn't a car company president who didn't love her,” says Scotty Reiss, owner of the website A Girl's Guide to Cars.

    Jean Marie Lienert was born on February 3, 1954 to a family of journalists in Detroit and raised in New Baltimore, Michigan, a far northern suburb.

    Her father, Robert, was editor of Automotive News; her mother, Audrey (Gagnon) Lienert, wrote for the New Baltimore newspaper; and one of her brothers, Paul, also became a noted automotive journalist.

    A good student, Jean graduated from high school in 1970 at the age of 16 and enrolled at the University of Michigan that fall. But college challenged her, and she dropped out after three incomplete semesters.

    She bought a used Plymouth sedan, painted it yellow and started working as a driver for the Ann Arbor Yellow Cab Company. To save money, she also taught herself car repair.

    “I haven't shaved my legs. I smoked cigars. I was so cool,” she wrote in a 2014 article on her blog, Jean Knows Cars. “I used to have a bottle of wine under the seat, and if I liked the person in the back seat, I would offer him or her a snail.”

    Her brother Paul, then an editor at Autoweek, found her a job as a mechanic and test driver at the Chrysler Proving Grounds. There she edited a union newsletter between shifts, her only journalistic experience when Mr. Davis hired her.

    Her first marriage to Tom Lindamood, a dispatcher at her taxi company, ended in divorce. She married Tim Jennings in 1996 in a ceremony in Geneva – not because they wanted a fashionable wedding, but because the Geneva Motor Show was taking place nearby. Bob Lutz, the president of Chrysler, was the witness.

    Along with Mr. Jennings, she is survived by her brothers, Paul, Ted and Tom.

    Ms. Jennings started her blog in 2012 and left Automobile in 2014 (it ceased publication in 2020). Although she closed the blog in 2016, she continued to write freelance articles and shoot videos on site at car shows.

    She was clearly recognizable on the show floor by her flashy hats and the horde of car celebrities who flocked around her. The attention never went to her head.

    “It's like living a jet-set life on a pauper's wage,” she told the blog Motorhead Mama. “I go to castles in Germany, châteaux and five-star restaurants in France, and then I come home and put the moldy laundry in the washing machine and wash the crusty dishes.”