No. 133: Sybil soars to victory (1947)
Sybil Lupp was the Jean Batten of early sports car motoring.Vivacious, adventurous and extremely talented, Lupp's fascinating life involved success as a driver, administrator, mechanic, saleswoman and businesswoman.
She and second husband Percy - the younger brother of her first husband, Jack, who died at a young age - helped establish the Otago Sports Car Club in 1947.
Lupp won the new organisation's first major competition that year, scorching up Patmos Ave in a 1938 MG TA, and followed it up with multiple trophies over the coming years.
She was the first woman to win the Sundstrum Memorial Trophy, she won the South Island hillclimb, and she was the only woman in New Zealand's first national circuit car race at Wigram in 1949, finishing fifth.
She drove better than most men and got her hands covered in grease, but she also wore a dress underneath her overalls.
Lupp was the first female member of the executive of the Association of New Zealand Car Clubs (later the Motorsport Association of New Zealand).
Her driving career was soon replaced by a life in tuning/repair and then sales.
She moved to Wellington, where she died in 1994.
