Ivy and Jack

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We suspect this is a 'staged' photograph because Ivy understood the value of publicity to help with her love of motor racing - she is of course Ivy Cummings. The picture shows her with a 1925 Singer but a 1916 copy of Lightcar & Cyclecar magazine  printed a story about her entitled  'A plucky young lady driver. Her first drive round Brooklands age 11½.' where we learn the first Light Car she drove was a 'Cummikar'.  "... I have had the speedometer round to 50 mph many times on the track..."  You are forgiven if you have never heard of it - neither had we. It was a French Ronteix sold in UK as Cummikar.

In 1916, when Ivy was 15, her father gave her a Baby Peugeot  and she writes, " I drive it all over the place. Sometimes I take out a wounded soldier, my mother or my grandmother. They all tell me they feel safe with me" .  Her talent for driving is impressive and you can read here how she raced such cars as a 1912 Coupe de L'Auto Vauxhall, a 3 litre Sunbeam (see video), an Akala-engined GN/Frazer Nash and the famous 5 litre chain drive Bugatti 'Black Bess'. She married in 1925, insisting she drove the Frazer Nash from the wedding.

(Text and pictures Robin Batchelor)

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