Mad For Speed
November 9, 2014 4:57 PM   Subscribe

In 1914, Joan Newton Cuneo, the first female race car driver in the United States told Country Life magazine, that she had already owned eighteen automobiles. For most people, in 1914, this was an incredible number. After three years of searching, I have only been able to positively identify 12, along with two others for which I have a description but no name.
posted by Slap*Happy (9 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
However, although she would fight against the Contest Board’s ruling, this would be her last opportunity to race in an AAA sanctioned event, as the organization banned women competitors in the following month.

We have lost so many important voices to stupidity.
posted by SPrintF at 5:48 PM on November 9, 2014 [4 favorites]


> ...she had already owned eighteen automobiles. For most people, in 1914, this was an incredible number.

It would not be all that less incredible today.
posted by ardgedee at 6:24 PM on November 9, 2014 [3 favorites]


Big manly men, and apparently also absolute chicken shits.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:28 PM on November 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


Early race car drivers are just insane to me. She went 112 mph in one of those completely open, hard-metal-everywhere, no-seatbelt, no-power-steering things, wearing her Edwardian clothes and a hat?!
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:29 PM on November 9, 2014 [13 favorites]


Seriously, driving 112 mph in one of those cars on the roads in those photos seems scarier than going 112mph on a motorcycle. It's like driving one of those fisher price barbie jeeps down a rally circuit at regular speeds.

That is a level of hardcore that i can't even really figure out how to place on any sort of ridiculousness pyramid.
posted by emptythought at 3:25 AM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


... and one of them is one of the most ugly/awesome cars I've ever seen!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:13 AM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


The top photo in the featured link shows that Cuneo would have been the perfect stunt double for any movie involving a) a car chase and b) Eleanor Roosevelt.
posted by LeLiLo at 4:28 AM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


Love stories like this. I have driven racing cars from the teens and twenties on nice smooth asphalt going legal limit speeds and they are a hoot to drive. Even at 50mph there is so much to do and be mindful of, respect to anyone who can really put their foot down in one of these old machines.
posted by alfanut at 8:50 AM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


Going by your name, was it the 40/60 HP Corsa? Wonderful car, looked more like an interwar-era racer than a pre-WWI-era car.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:41 AM on November 10, 2014


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