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The Jaguar Club FOR DISTINGUISHED FAST RACERS SYBIL LUPP Kiwi legend Sybil Lupp may not be on most mainstream lists of iconic racers. But with a career that inspired female drivers for generations to come, her influence on the racing world is one to remember TEXT: Paul Entwistle ILLUSTRATION: Anna Parini The small sheep farm on New Zealand’s North Island where Sybil Audrey Marie Wellesley-Colley, born in 1916, grew up was like any other. But from her early years, the woman who would become New Zealand’s first ever female racing driver was different. She lived by her own rules; she cared little for dolls and Wendy houses, and allegedly smashed a tea set on her fourth birthday because it didn’t have “wheels and things”. At 11 she was throwing her father’s car around the family farm, preparing to shake up the twee society that abounded in pre-War New Zealand: she was unapologetically a petrol head. Striking out on her own, she completed a correspondence car maintenance course and sold cars. Just a young girl in a job – and a society – dominated by men, she admitted the work was “hard” and that she would have given up were it not for the fact that she was “too damn proud”. So she stuck at it, and succeeded. Soon she was able to open up her own business repairing and selling Jaguars, a first step in a lifelong love affair with the Leaper. She owned 15 Jaguars herself, including a stunning gold-painted V12 E-Type (which matched her favourite ball gown), a vibrant red XJS, and a white XK120 that would become her signature car. Cars were Sybil’s first real love, but racing enthusiast and mechanic Jack Lupp was a close second. They worked together at the car dealership when the witty, glamorous blonde with startling grey eyes caught his attention. They married in 1939 as the first convulsions of war reached New Zealand’s shores. Sybil had a “quiet war” as a driver in the New Zealand Women’s Auxiliary Air Force but in 1945 tragedy struck when Jack died of a heart attack. Two years later, she fell in love with Jack’s brother Percy, another car buff, and the two married, founding the Otago Sports Car Club. Fittingly, Sybil won the club’s inaugural race – it became a habit, as she began collecting one trophy after the next, roundly beating her male competitors in her racing overalls, which were thrown on over her dress. Sybil lived her life in the fast lane. By 1961 her second marriage was over, but the Jaguar dealership that she and a former Jaguar engineer, Lionel Archer, had founded was in fine fettle. In 1969 Lionel finally proposed to her over the bonnet of a Jaguar, and Sybil got married for the third (and last) time. Age couldn’t dim Sybil’s speed or way of life; she just adapted. At 74, however, she made one concession to old age: she bought a red XJS with an automatic transmission and power steering. In 1994, Sybil died at the age of 78, and was followed on her final journey by an automotive club motorcade on the day of her funeral. Combining style, eloquence, elegance and pure racing talent, she would inspire female racers for generations to come, proving that to succeed in a man’s world, you don’t have to be more manly than anyone else. All you need is a lifelong obsession as a driver and true petrol head. 78 THE JAGUAR

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