Jean Jennings, Pioneering Auto Writer and Fearless Storyteller, Has Died

Jean Jennings, the pioneering automotive writer for Car and Driver and Automobile magazines, died today. She was a friend of long standing. My recollection of our first meeting remains vivid. Let me set the stage.

My introduction into big-league automotive journalism came in 1985 and included a meeting with Jean. I lucked into a seat for the second One Lap of America, an opportunity that grew out of a newspaper interview I did with Car and Driver automotive writer Brock Yates, who was touring the country touting One Lap, his slightly more law-abiding version of the cross-country Cannonball Run event.

The 1985 One Lap, which visited all four corners of America in a rally-styled format, was one of those experiences you look back on with salubrious memories, but while you were actually out there, it was miserable. We spent one night in a motel, but for the rest of that 8800-mile grind, we were constantly in the car, which always smelled like farts.

In our case, the car was a minivan, a Dodge Caravan. Our three-man team was sponsored by Chrysler, and the Caravan was new, and they wanted to show that it could hold up. Our corporate teammate was a Chrysler Le Baron GTS, driven by the biggest star in the field, former Formula 1 champion Phil Hill. The afternoon before the start, I drove Hill around Detroit in the minivan looking for parts. In awe.

After the start, we headed to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, then went west. This took us to Montana, and a mandatory checkpoint in Kalispell. It was snowing. An early-March legitimate blizzard. We missed, by five minutes, the closing of Interstate 90. Fewer than eight of the 78 competitors made it through; the rest were stuck at a rest stop, steaming over the penalty they’d incur by not making it to the checkpoint in time.

I was driving. I shouldn’t have been, as my experience in the snow was negligible. I had never seen a storm like this. It was pitch dark. The only way you knew you were on the road was that it was slightly higher than the rest of the terrain, and you just tried to drive down the middle of the hump. I was doing an idiotic 70 mph while my two co-drivers slept.

I hadn’t seen another car for at least half an hour, when a car’s headlights appeared in my rear-view mirror. It was coming fast. Moments later it passed us like we were mired in molasses. It was car number 00, a 1985 Audi Quattro. Yes, it was all-wheel-drive, but still… The driver was Nicole Ouimet, an FIA World Rally Championship racer from Quebec, teamed with veteran WRC navigator Ty Holmquist.

And in the back seat, Jean Lindamood, which was her name then, senior editor of Car and Driver magazine. We all had CB radios. I picked up the microphone and said, “My god! How fast are you guys going?”

“Right now…” Lindamood replied, looking over Nicole’s shoulder at the speedometer, “…120.” And then they were gone.

Thus began an unlikely friendship of the already-famous female magazine writer, and the guy who wrote a car column for the Dallas Times Herald. Three years later I would be writing for Car and Driver; 10 years after that I’d be the executive editor.

But Lindamood’s One Lap story was the first time my name appeared in the magazine. Sort of. She quoted me, and the attribution went, “…said Steve Smith (not the Steve Smith),” as the current managing editor of Car and Driver was also named Steve Smith. For years I was referred to as “Not the Steve Smith.”

Often still thought of as Jean Lindamood even after her long and happy marriage to Tim Jennings, Jean’s style was immensely unique. Her father was Robert Lienert, editor of Automotive News, and brother Paul Lienert is an accomplished automotive reporter, currently writing for Reuters. But unlike them, Jean didn’t have much time for journalism. She was a writer, self-taught and uncommonly talented. She saw automotive writing as a way to do things, go places, meet people. Jean was fearless that way.

Jean was born in Detroit, and Michigan was in her blood. She spent a year in college and then began her search for experiences, including her now-famous period driving a Yellow Cab. From there she went to work at the Chrysler Proving Grounds, mostly as a test driver and editing the UAW newsletter. She talked her way into a job at Car and Driver, convincing editor David E. Davis that it was time the boy’s club that was automotive journalism should diversify a little.

That was in 1981. Until Jean, only the late Denise McCluggage of Autoweek had really managed to join that club. Like Jean, Denise was able to turn a phrase that made every story she wrote worth reading.

With money from Rupert Murdoch, David E. and Jean left Car and Driver to launch Automobile magazine in 1986, an entirely new voice in the industry, steering away from the instrumented testing that had become such a big part of Car and Driver and Road & Track and emphasizing cars-as-a-lifestyle. Jean’s column, Vile Gossip, was a consistent must-read.

Despite Automobile’s upscale nature, it said something that Jean always appreciated inexpensive and oddball cars as well as the obligatory Ferraris and Lamborghinis. In a 2001 profile of her in The New Yorker, the author wrote that, “Jean is in no way a car snob.”

During her period at Automobile, she became more and more immersed in the edit process, which gave her less time to write. It was a loss. Still, as an editor, she changed the business. “She was always the brightest light in the room,” said Molly Jean, who worked with her during the magazine days, and now works for Hagerty media. In fact, quite a few people associated with Hagerty worked with Jean. One is Eric Weiner, executive editor of Hagerty.com, who worked for Jean at Automobile. “My place in the industry is largely thanks to her,” he said. “She hired me from an email I wrote to her. She was a larger-than-life figure. She valued hard work and creativity, and she loved personalities, and she poured her heart and soul into that magazine. She launched a lot of people’s careers.”

As may be expected from a pair of large egos, David E. and Jean fought periodically until the relationship was irretrievably broken, eventually resulting in David E.’s now-famous comment in 2009 when he was a guest on the Autoline: Detroit TV show. Speaking about Jean, he said he sometimes dreams “of a FedEx flight on its way to Memphis flying over Parma where she lives and a grand piano falling out of the airplane and whistling down through the air, this enormous object, and lands on her and makes the damnedest chord anybody has ever heard; this sound of music that has never been heard by the human ear. And the next morning all they can find are some shards of wood and a grease spot and no other trace of Mrs. Jennings.” To no one’s surprise, it made Jean laugh.

As a friend to both with no skin in the game, I tried a couple of times to broker peace, with no success. Still, before David E. died in 2011, Jean wrote this for the 25th anniversary edition of Automobile: She said he was “the most interesting, most difficult, cleverest, darkest, most erudite, dandiest, and most inspirational, charismatic and all-around damnedest human being I will ever meet. I have loved him. I have seriously not loved him. But this isn’t an obituary, so we don’t have to get into any weepy crap here.”

While still at Automobile, Jean launched a website, JeanKnowsCars in 2012, working out of the home she and Tim shared in the country. Two years later, she served as a judge on the cable TV reality show Motor City Masters, which focused on car design.

Jean’s contributions lessened in the past few years as she fought Alzheimer’s, the same brutal disease that took Brock Yates in 2016.

Jean’s obituary, as it appeared on husband Tim’s Facebook page, said this: “In a business that takes itself very seriously, Jean brought joy, laughter, and intelligent cynicism to her writing. As an editor, she nurtured talent in her writers and collaborators and was a fearless critic of falsehood and artifice. She did not suffer fools. She treasured her family and friends. Jean loved reading, cooking, and gardening—she was a master gardener who could identify plants by their Latin names. She was the best storyteller—and the best audience for a good story.

“She is survived by her husband, Tim Jennings; her brothers Paul (Anita), Ted (Rosemarie), and Tom Lienert; niece Becky Lienert; and nephews Daniel and Phillip Lienert. She loved her dogs Jackie, Farley, and Ray the Stray, and they will mourn her loss. She will be deeply missed by her many friends, acquaintances, and readers and by a generation of writers inspired by her work and accomplishments. Details for a memorial service and celebration of life will be announced soon.”

In lieu of flowers, if you are so inclined, the family suggests memorial contributions be sent to the Arbor Day Foundation (https://www.arborday.org), which has planted a half a billion trees.

Jean Jennings, the person you always hoped would sit at your table, was 70.