The OSCA Formula Junior was provided by Briggs Cunningham. The Fiat powered OSCA Jr. was too late and too slow, but arguably the most beautiful Jr. every made. Here Denise is at the wheel of the OSCA at Watkins Glen in 1960. McCluggage first met Cunningham while covering the regattas on Long Island Sound in 1955 for the New York Herald Tribune. Cunningham also owned the Porsche RS550 co driven at Caracas 1957 by Denise and her famous rival Ruth Levy. The team brought the Porsche to a fourth in class. The Levy-McCluggage rivalry garnered a lot of press, but Levy realized that McCluggage was the better driver. Photo courtesy Denise McCluggage.
Hey, Denise McCluggage Fans – (and we KNOW there are MANY)!
Mark Reinwald is working with the Santa Fe Concorso’s “Tribute to Denise McCluggage” on September 27-29 to create a celebration of Denise McCluggage and the cars she raced.
As you probably know, Denise began with the classic MG and continued her racing career throughout a good part of her life. She drove everything in sight, and she drove everything well. She had some great competitors, but in general McCluggage is regarded as the best in class throughout the 1950s and 60s.
Mark’s goal is to gather as many of the cars she drove together for the Concorso at Santa Fe on September 26th 2013.
Perhaps you can help find the missing cars and coerce the current owners to bring their cars to what will be a great tribute to a great lady.
So, here’s what he has so far and here’s what is needed.
Promised to show:
Porsche 550RS 0139
Ferrari NART Spyder 1967 Sebring,
Ferrari SWB 1961 Sebring and more, in Switzerland, will not send. But we have a SWB coming to show as a representative of the car.
Still looking for:
Elva Porsche #70P-033 raced at Elkhart Lake 1965 #51, The Elva club is trying to find this car as well as Janos Wimpffen who just finished a book on the Elva’s.
Jaguar XK140, It would be cool if we could find her original car but we don’t have a serial number to go by.
MGB registration number 6 DBL, I think this car is in the UK. Raced 1963 Sebring with Christabel Carlisle.
Fiat Abarth Zagato Raced at 1958 Sebring #65 co driver Ruth Levy and Dan Gurney (Denise has story on Dan driving this car)
OSCA 750 serial #763 Race number 23 at Limerock 4/24/59 1st OA 1st in class.
OSCA 750 serial #758 Race number 23 at Sebring 3/22/58 DNF
OSCA S1000 serial number 1001, Race number 77 at Sebring 3/24/62 DNF
Lotus Eleven Serial Number 525? Race number 39 at Nassau 6/12/58
Austin Mini 737-ABL Alpine Rally 1963 DNF
Ford Falcon Monte Carlo Rally, 1964 I have a request into the Falcon club but no car has been found yet, I was told this was a rally car with fiberglass front end.
Alfa Romeo Guilietta Sprint Veloce 1958 Nurburgring placed 7th. No s/n.
A Maserati race number 123 at Lime Rock 7/28/57
Found but cannot show:
Porsche 550RS 004 at the Porsche museum
OSCA MT-4 1178 1956 Nassau Speed Week
OSCA 750 768 1962 Bridgehampton
If you can help, contact:
Mark H Reinwald
mreinwald@dadgarage.com
631-745-0024 Cell
A few photos of Denise and the cars she raced…
Bahamas, December 12th, 1958. Denise gets aboard Jim Lowe’s Lotus XI, possibly s/n 525. Racing against Philadelphia socialite Evelyn Mull in another Lotus, she had gearshift problems and retired in the first heat but won the second. Behind her, Mull and Marion Lowe battled for the overall win which went to Lowe followed by Mull and Denise. It was a great era for women race drivers, but by the end of the decade, women drivers were displaced largely by commercial interests and professional racing. (Bahamas News Agency)
McCluggage sitting next to her Elva F. Jr. at Lime Rock. Few doubted that McCluggage was the best American woman driver of her era. She raced everything imaginable, to a Fiat Abarth 750 at Sebring to a Ferrari SWB at the Nurburgring. Could she have become a Danica Patrick? In the 1950s and 60s, Indy was out of the question. Women were not even allowed in the pits, much less behind the wheel of an Indy car. “Indy didn’t become a possibility until ten years later,” said Denise. “If I had still been driving, it would have been for me. But Janet Guthrie was ten years younger, and she was more serious about it than I was.”
Denise was always ready to don a polka-dotted helmet. In 1965, she was driving this Porsche-powered Elva at Road America.. But racing was getting enormously expensive. “I knew things were changing when I drove my Ferrari from NYC to Chicago, all alone, no mechanics, for a race at Meadowdale and I saw that my competition, two Corvettes, had arrived on a double-decked trailer. I said, ‘Oh no, this is different.” I knew I’d never be able to compete with that. Plus, I drove there, raced, and drove home on one set of tires. You could drive a whole season on one set of tires. Now, it cost as much to do one race as it did then for a whole season.”
Enroute to her first drive as a ‘professional’ at the famous Nurburgring in 1958, Denise stopped to take this photo of her new Alfa Sprint Veloce near the harbor at Monaco. Her friend Phil Hill taught her the course. The adventure is recalled in full detail in ‘I Go Pro’ in VeloceToday. McCluggage’s first car was an MGTD, then a Jag XK140, later this Alfa. The original Jag and Alfa may be a bit hard to find in time for the Santa Fe Concorso, but suitable replacements will do. Signed prints of this photo will be available at the Santa Fe Concours.
*Quotes by Denise found in Todd McCarthy’s excellent book, “Fast Women”, Hyperion, NY 2007.
The Elva-Porsche drive at Road America in 1965 was typical Denise. This was a USRRC event, the biggest road racing series in the U.S. at the time (although it would be displaced as such the next year by the Can-Am). Denise teamed with Bill Kimberly to finish 8th and second in class against the best the U.S. had to offer. As an example, the first two places were taken by Chaparrals. The two-liter Elva was entered by Ed Weschler.
I was privileged to see Denise at her best many times. My two favorites were Sebring and Meadowdale in 1961. At Sebring she won the GT class with alto sax man, Allen Eager and at Meadowdale she beat all the Corvettes in an SCCA National. Both times she drove her Ferrari 250 GT Short Wheelbase. Thank you Denise for all the pleasure you have provided to enthusiasts over the years. You are truly the Monet of auto journalism, a master colorist.
Denise will be the keynote speaker at this years Alfa Romeo Owners Club national convention in Sonoma County, California. The convention runs from July 8-12. Track time at Sonoma Raceway (I still want to call it Sears Point), driving tours araound beautiful Northern California, and the Concorso Alfa Romeo are just a few of the highlights.
We’ll even have one of Denise’s cars there!
Jointly hosted by Delta Sierra Alfa Romeo Club and the Alfa Romeo Association, this promises to be a real treat!
http://www.alfacalifornia2013.com
Comparing Denise with Danica comes to a screeching halt after the similarity of first letters in their names. Denise was a genuine racer and, as the article points out, raced just about anything on wheels. Danica is a marketing manipulation who does anything for publicity except really race automobiles. Her only win in Japan came when competiton was running out of gas and slowed just to be able to finish. Iknow, I know, that’s racing. But Denise was always down on the throttle.
This multi-faceted lady also encouraged our boys through her skiing articles, too.
And Denise was always the first author I turned the pages to in every auto magazine I subscribed to…and still look for her when each AutoWeek arrives.
Rog Patterson
One of my fondest memories is of watching Denise climbing into Bob Grossman’s silver Ferrari in her light blue Dunlop drivers suit. It was my first appreachiation
of the lovey female form.
I have fond memories of driving past Denise’s checkered mailbox on the Mad River Glen road off Rte 100 near Waitsfield Vt all winter long during the 1960’s. I felt a certain kinship with her because we were both driving Porsches then, and I had a crush on her but was too shy to introduce myself.