Rosemary Smith, fearless Irish rally driver and role model for women in the sport – obituary
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Rosemary Smith, who has died aged 86, was one of Ireland’s best-known motor-sport drivers of the 20th century, blazing a trail in a heavily male-dominated sport; in 1965, at the wheel of a Hillman Imp, she became the only woman to win the Tulip Rally in the Netherlands.
Richard Burton, on location for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, happened to be staying with Elizabeth Taylor in the same hotel as Rosemary in Noordwijk: the couple sent her a letter of congratulations and a bouquet of flowers.
The youngest of three siblings, she was born on August 7 1937 at Bray in Co Wicklow. Her father, John Smith, owned a garage in Rathmines. He was a Methodist, his wife Jane was a Catholic, and it was an unhappy marriage, with Rosemary remembering her mother “constantly nagging and having tantrums” while her father was gentle and supportive of her ambitions, though naive in business.
He taught Rosemary to drive in the family Vauxhall when she was 11; she mastered the art of the power slide in a muddy field in Tallaght. This came in handy two years later when her mother electrocuted herself with a wet electric plug and Rosemary drove her to the local doctor to be revived.
Rosemary attended Beaufort High School, run by Loreto nuns, until 15, when her father took her out after the Mother Superior informed him that “your daughter is stupid.” She went straight to the Grafton Academy to learn fashion design.
Tall (5ft 10in) and blonde, Rosemary Smith showed a flair for modelling as well as for dressmaking, so her mother enrolled her at the Miriam Woodbyrne deportment agency, and when Christian Dior’s “New Look” came to Dublin, she was one of the local girls chosen to model.
Thinking that her future lay in fashion, she opened a boutique with her mother in South Anne Street, Dublin. But she had inherited her father’s lack of business sense and was soon weary of toiling long hours for meagre rewards.
In any case, the course of her life was about to change. One day Delphine Bigger, wife of the 1956 Monte Carlo rally winner Frank Bigger, who ran the Coffee Inn in South Anne Street, asked Rosemary to navigate for her at a rally in Kilkenny. As it turned out, Rosemary was hopeless at map-reading, so she ended up doing most of the driving. From that moment she decided that she was happiest behind the wheel.
A strong performance in the 1962 Monte Carlo Rally in a privateer-entry 1.6 litre Sunbeam Rapier saloon got her talents spotted by the Rootes Competitions Department. It was not only her driving ability that attracted attention: the marketing men also saw “a leggy blonde dolly bird” (her words), who could be draped over bonnets to promote Rootes Group marques like Hillman, Sunbeam, Talbot and Humber.
She quickly establishing a reputation as a fearless and formidable driver, despite the men often getting better cars. She secured coveted works drives – initially in Rapiers, then in 1 litre Hillman/Sunbeam Imps and a 4.3 litre Sunbeam Tiger roadster.
Her first entry in her home event, the Circuit of Ireland, another World Rally Championship round, came in 1962, and she took her first Ladies Cup the following year. She competed eight times in Ireland’s most prestigious rally, her best result being third overall in 1968 with a Sunbeam Imp. On the Scottish Rally she also finished third overall (i.e. regardless of category) in 1966, fourth overall in 1967, and in 1969 she took a Hillman Imp to overall victory on the Cork Rally.
Altogether she competed seven times in the RAC International Rally of Great Britain, eight times in the Monte Carlo Rally, and went on to drive in rallies all over the world, including the 10,400 mile 1968 Daily Express London-Sydney Marathon; the 16,000 mile 1970 Daily Mirror London-Mexico World Cup Rally (bringing her Austin Maxi home 10th overall, with two co-drivers, Alice Watson and Ginette Derroland); the Alpine Rally; the arduous 2,300 mile East African Safari Rally; and the (Vancouver to Quebec) Shell 4000.
During her career she recorded 21 finishes in 24 international rallies, taking nine class wins, 12 Coupe des Dames/Ladies Cups, and many stage victories, on snow, ice, gravel and forest dirt track surfaces in the world’s toughest events.
She also competed in long-distance endurance events such as the Daytona 24 Hours, Kyalami Nine Hours and Sebring 12 Hours, her best result 19th overall/1st in class in 1970, with co-drivers Janet Guthrie and Judy Kondratieff, in an Austin Healey Sprite Coupe at Sebring.
She drove saloons and sports cars for Ford, British Motor Corporation/British Leyland, Porsche, Opel, Lancia, and Chrysler Talbot. But it is with the diminutive, rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive Hillman Imps which, like their front-engine, front-wheel-drive Mini Cooper S rival, benefited from excellent traction on treacherous surfaces, that she will forever be associated.
Most notable was her victory with navigator and co-driver Valerie Domleo in the 1965 International Tulip Rally, made doubly challenging by appalling weather conditions throughout 1,800 miles across Europe. Rosemary Smith was duly named Texaco Sports Star of the Year.
She would go on, in 1978, to set an Irish Land Speed Record of 178mph in a 7.0 litre Jaguar XJ-12C race car and continued to take part in international historic events, including placing a Sunbeam Tiger 20th overall in the 1993 Historic Tulip Rally, until 2019.
Two years earlier Rosemary had become, aged 79, the oldest person to drive a contemporary Formula One car when she tested a 800bhp Renault at France’s Paul Ricard Circuit. In 2002, for her “outstanding achievements in international motor sport”, the Fédération International des Véhicules Anciens (FIVA), added her to its Heritage Hall of Fame.
In retirement she ran a driving school and a campaign to educate teenagers before they got into trouble on the roads in her homeland. Renault provided their Clio cars for this and through this connection, at the age of 79, she ended up driving a Renault Formula One car around the Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France, the oldest person ever to drive a full-blooded F1 car.
She appeared on television, enjoyed playing tennis and poker and in 2018 published an autobiography, Driven.
Though glamorous, vibrant and always entertaining company, Rosemary Smith struggled to find happiness in her romantic relationships, including a marriage that she regretted almost instantly but could not formally dissolve until the ban on divorce in Ireland was lifted in 1996. She suffered four miscarriages, the last of which was nearly fatal.
But about driving she had no doubts: “I always feel free when I’m in the car… There’s just me and the car against the world.” Her funeral cortège through Sandyford village was led by her blue Hillman Imp rally car and bringing up the rear was a convoy of Imps in varied colours driven by friends.
Rosemary Smith, born August 7 1937, died December 5 2023
