Jean Jennings, Who Wrote With Verve About Cars, Dies at 70

The first time Jean Jennings confronted the Mexican federal police, they’d simply arrested one in every of her mates for public urination.

It was 1983, and she or he was a part of an eight-vehicle highway check alongside the size of Baja California, which she had joined as a author for Car and Driver journal. Thinking quick, she referred to as her buddy a cerdo — pig — and talked the police right down to a superb.

Just a few days later, the cops caught them dashing outdoors La Paz, close to the underside of the peninsula; she wriggled out of a ticket by displaying officers her Datsun’s fancy digital voice system. Still later, she was arrested when she hit a cow. This time she wheedled an officer into letting her drive his police automobile, gave his girlfriend a manicure and received away with a $50 superb.

Mrs. Jennings, who died on Dec. 16 at 70, was not simply top-of-the-line writers in automotive journalism; she was additionally, by all accounts, probably the most attention-grabbing. She received a demolition derby, rode a bike throughout China and traversed New Zealand in a 1916 Benz, all throughout her 30-year profession first at Car and Driver after which at Automobile, the place she was editor in chief.

Mrs. Jennings had no formal coaching in journalism. Cars, although, she knew: Before becoming a member of Car and Driver in 1981, she had pushed a cab, repaired engines and crash-tested prototype Chryslers on the firm’s proving grounds outdoors Detroit.

Tim Jennings, her husband, mentioned she died of Alzheimer’s illness in a care facility.

Cars, and writing about vehicles, have been (and nonetheless are) largely a person’s world, however Mrs. Jennings had no drawback making it her personal.

“The first massive smack virtually threw me into the again seat,” she wrote in a 1983 column about that demo derby. “When the automobile wouldn’t begin once more, I found that the little alligator clip that was working the juice from the battery to the ignition coil had popped off. I received all the pieces re­linked and working in time to see a gaping trunk heading for my port aspect at ten knots.”

Mrs. Jennings was employed at Car and Driver by David E. Davis Jr., a famend determine in automotive journalism. In 1986, he took her with him after Rupert Murdoch provided to help a brand new kind of automobile journal, Automobile, which was aimed toward extra discerning readers and featured writers like P.J. O’Rourke, David Halberstam and Jim Harrison. Mrs. Jennings proved greater than able to maintaining with them.

“She and David have been the one ones writing something aside from fanboy notes,” Kathleen Hamilton, a childhood buddy who later labored for her at Automobile, mentioned in an interview. “It was fanatic writing, and she or he introduced journey to the car-world reader.”

Mrs. Jennings additionally contributed to nonautomotive publications like Esquire and New Woman, calibrating her phrases to suit the viewers.

For New Woman, she wrote about tips on how to negotiate with automobile salesmen; for Esquire, she wrote sentences like, “If your ass is small, your coronary heart is massive and your driver’s license is open to some further factors, probably the most thrilling automobile on the market in America is unquestionably this tiny terror, the primary all-new Lotus within the U.S. in 15 years.”

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

Mrs. Jennings later moved into modifying, finally changing Mr. Davis as editor in chief of Automobile. She continued to construct the journal’s readership and writing steady; beneath her steering, in 2009, Automobile turned the primary automobile publication to win a National Magazine Award, for a column by Jamie Kitman.

By then Mrs. Jennings had develop into a part of the automotive institution — befriending racecar drivers, hobnobbing with auto executives and flying around the globe to test-drive Ferraris.

“There wasn’t a president of an automotive firm who didn’t love her,” mentioned Scotty Reiss, who runs the web site A Girl’s Guide to Cars.

Jean Marie Lienert was born right into a household of journalists on Feb. 3, 1954, in Detroit and grew up in New Baltimore, Mich., a far northern suburb.

Her father, Robert, was the editor of Automotive News; her mom, Audrey (Gagnon) Lienert, wrote for the New Baltimore newspaper; and one in every of her brothers, Paul, turned a famous automotive journalist as effectively.

A superb pupil, Jean graduated from highschool at 16, in 1970, and enrolled on the University of Michigan that fall. But school challenged her, and she or he dropped out after three incomplete semesters.

She purchased a used Plymouth sedan, painted it yellow and joined the Ann Arbor Yellow Cab Company as a driver. To get monetary savings, she taught herself automobile restore on the aspect.

“I didn’t shave my legs. I smoked cigars. I used to be so cool,” she wrote in a 2014 entry on her weblog, Jean Knows Cars. “I used to maintain a bottle of wine beneath the seat, and if I preferred the particular person within the again seat, I’d supply them a slug.”

Her brother Paul, then an editor at Autoweek, discovered her a job as a mechanic and check driver on the Chrysler Proving Grounds. There, in between shifts, she edited a union publication, her sole journalistic expertise when Mr. Davis employed her.

Her first marriage, to Tom Lindamood, a dispatcher at her cab firm, led to divorce. She married Tim Jennings in 1996 at a ceremony in Geneva — not as a result of they needed a modern vacation spot marriage ceremony, however as a result of the Geneva Auto Show was happening close by. Bob Lutz, the president of Chrysler, was the most effective man.

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

Mrs. Jennings began her weblog in 2012 and left Automobile in 2014 (it ceased publication in 2020). Though she shuttered the weblog in 2016, she continued to jot down freelance articles, and to report on-the-spot movies at automobile reveals.

She was readily recognizable on the present flooring for her gaudy hats, and for the scrum of auto-world celebrities who would flock round her. The consideration by no means went to her head.

“It’s like dwelling a jet-set life on pauper’s wages,” she instructed the weblog Motorhead Mama. “I am going to castles in Germany, chateaus and five-star eating places in France, after which I come residence and take away the mildewed laundry within the washer and wash the crusty dishes.”