Kay Petre

10 May 1903 – 10 August 1994

Kathleen Coad "Kay" Petre (née Defries) was an early motor racing star. She was born in York, Ontario, now part of Toronto.

Kay was the daughter of Robert Leo Defries KC (died 1957) and his wife, Annie Gray. Her father was a barrister in Toronto. She spent her later schooldays in England, but returned to Canada in her twenties. After a period studying art in Paris, she returned to Canada to marry Langlois de Lefroy in 1924, but was widowed and married secondly the Englishman Henry Aloysius Petre (1884–1962), who forsook a law career to pursue an interest in aviation. They had no children.

Kay Petre was a star at the legendary English Brooklands track, and the exploits of this 4' 10" lady caused a media sensation at the time. The abiding image of Kay is a tiny woman seated in a huge 10.5 litre V12 Delage. This was the car in which she battled for the Women's Outer Circuit Record at Brooklands with Gwenda Stewart. Kay gained the upper hand on 26 October 1934 with a 129.58 mph lap, but in August 1935 Gwenda fought back with a faster lap. A determined Kay took her record back the same day with a 134.75 mph pass but Gwenda, driving the Derby-Miller, had the last laugh three days later at 135.95 mph.

At Brooklands: "Kay Petre got three lap records, her first two in 1934, first in a Bugatti at 124 mph then in a Delage at 129.58 mph. In 1935 she used the Delage to achieve 134.75."

Although she is always associated with the Delage, Kay started racing in a Wolseley Hornet Special bought for her by her husband. She also raced an Invicta and a Bugatti in which she won a handicap race in 1935. However, she was most successful in a series of Rileys. She was ninth in the Mountain Grand Prix at Brooklands in a Riley 1.5 in 1934, against tough opposition. Her first visit to Le Mans was also that year. She and Dorothy Champney finished 13th, driving a Riley Ulster Imp. The Riley connection continued next year, but Kay and Elsie "Bill" Wisdom failed to finish with a blown engine.

Between 1934 and 1936, Kay was a regular at all the big British races like the Brooklands 500 Miles and Double Twelve Hours, plus sports car races at Donington Park and Crystal Palace. She partnered some big names, such as Dudley Benjafield and Prince Bira of Siam. She also drove in rallies and was an accomplished hillclimb driver, claiming the Ladies' Record at Shelsley Walsh twice.

In 1937 Petre travelled to South Africa for the Grand Prix motor racing season with her Riley. Here she befriended the legendary Bernd Rosemeyer, who was racing for Auto Union. Competing against him and other top drivers of the day, she drove in three Grands Prix, scoring a sixth place in the Grosvenor GP at Cape Town, but failing to finish the others. In September 1937, she went to France to race a "Grasshopper" Austin in the Paris to Nice rally.

She was driving for the works Austin team at Brooklands in September 1937 when her career was ended by a terrible accident. During practice for the 500 Kilometre race, Reg Parnell misjudged an overtaking move, lost speed, slid down the banking and hit her Austin Seven from behind. She crashed badly and was seriously injured. She never raced competitively again.

After this accident Petre turned to journalism. During the Second World War she was a food writer,[1] but then became motoring correspondent for The Daily Graphic magazine. In the early 1950s, Petre was employed by Austin as a "colour consultant" to suggest colours and combinations for the new A40/A50 Cambridge. Many of her ideas, such as bright blues and pinks and following the clothes fashions of the day using brown, dark red and rustwere not adopted, but her ideas for the cars' interior colours and fabrics were adopted.

Later Leonard Lord appointed her as a colour consultant to the British Motor Corporation, charged with brightening up the Austin image to appeal to women drivers. She also designed fabric patterns for the interior of the Mini.

After her husband's death she lived alone in St John's Wood, London, then as a resident in a care home, Parkwood House, Camden, where she died on 10 August 1994. She was cremated at Golders Green crematorium.

Complete 24-hour Le Mans results

Kay Petre - a tribute

Motorsports Magazine - October 1994

The advertisement for my History of Brooklands says it is about "the days when men were men, which reflected their will to win". Maybe: but it is also about many women drivers, most of whom also did pretty well. I loved 'em all, metaphorically speaking, none more so than Mrs Kay Petre, who died recently.

This petite, very attractive, dark-haired girl had her first taste of racing at Brooklands in 1932, with a black low-chassis 4 1/2-litre Invicta, which she afterwards lent to Dudley Froy.

She became hooked on the sport and sought something more handleable, so her husband, the pioneer Brooklands aviator who flew a Deperdussin monoplane, bought Kay a red Daytona Wolseley Hornet Special. It wasn't long before she took a third place in this new car.

But this keen lady driver decided an even quicker car was needed for the 1933 season, so she obtained a 2-litre GP Bugatti, kept in tune for her by Papworth, the well-known London expert on these cars. Mrs Petre was always immaculately turned out, clad in tailored light blue silk overalls to match her racing cars, and she expected these to be in keeping and was apt to "exert her authority" if she spotted any dirt or blemish when collecting her Bugatti. With it she was second to Rita Don's Riley in a Womens' Mountain Handicap at the Track and, when the Opening Meeting of the 1935 Brooklands' season was confined to halfmile sprints, won hers. Later she won an outer-circuit race by an excitingly narrow margin from the experienced Chris Staniland (Bugatti). In the 1934 LCC Relay Race Kay ran a Singer all-girls team with Mrs Tolhurst and Eileen Ellison. They finished fifth, at 71.53 mph. sash-changes included, and were awarded the Wakefield and Houghton Cups. An MG she had intended to race proved a non-starter but Kay, always looking for speedier cars, borrowed Dick Shuttleworth's 2.3 Bugatti and got it round at 117.74 mph in spite of a plug cutting out, sufficient for her to come home second to Whitney Straight's 4-litre Duesenberg. By now there was interest in the ladies laprecord. Kay had this up to 114.14 mph with Fotheringham's 2.3 Bugatti until Mrs Elsie Wisdom in a Dixon Riley raised it to 126.73 mph nine days later. However, before the 1934 season was over Kay had clocked 129.58 mph in Oliver Bertram's giant 10 1/2-litre V12 Delage. Neither lady was daunted by tyre trouble, the 2-litre Riley, which Mrs Wisdom had not driven previously, shedding its o/s front one in practice, and Kay, likewise driving in a gusty wind, had the breaker-strips showing on both front tyres after a mere three laps.

In 1935 Kay Petre drove this aged ex-LSR Delage, by then owned by the JRDC, fairly regularly, a very brave performance remembering that she was of slight, slim build, so had to have a special seat installed and the pedals extended, even if she did not think about things like metal-fatigue! She opened the Brooklands season by starting from scratch in this difficult car with Bertram's more modern 8-litre Barnato-Hassan and lapping at 127.38 mph. After which Kay transferred to Shuttleworth's Bugatti and won, again from scratch, another outercircuit race, with a lap at 125.48 mph. And at Whitsun she managed a third place in the big Delage, although baulked by small cars travelling high on the bankings, overtaking two of them below, in the best tradition of past track-masters like JG Parry Thomas and a few others.

By August the Ladies' lap-record was in the news again, as Mrs Gwenda Stewart was bringing over from Paris her 1.6-litre Derby-Miller, which eventually lapped the Montlhery banked track at nearly 149 mph, to challenge Mrs Petre in the old Delage. In practice Kay did 134.75 mph, after Gwenda had scored the first 130 mph lap by a lady. Before the public, on Bank Holiday Monday, the Delage, with a slipping clutch, lapped at 134.24 mph. Mrs Stewart was clocked at 133.67 mph before the Brooklands' silencer exploded and fumes brought her in. First round to Kay! But on the Tuesday Gwenda went out again and did a 135.95 mph lap, the all-time womens' record. It is a sign of how hazardous this was that the BARC officals would not let the cars race together, timing them on separate runs, and that they then decreed that this sort of thing must never happen again. . .

Piston trouble then prevented Kay from having a go in Dr Benjafield's Alfa Romeo, but she used the supercharged White Riley Six to good effect, to take third place in a 1935 Mountain race, giving her the Class-F lap-record for this course at 77.97 mph, until robbed of it by Fane's Frazer Nash. In 1936 she drove an ERA in the JCC International Trophy Race but spun at the Fork turn in this long-distance simulated road event and, unable to restart the engine, had to run to the pits and solicit the help of two mechanics. In the BRDC outer-circuit "500" her Riley was delayed by valve-gear problems but at the closing BARC Meeting Kay won a "mixed" Mountain race with the Riley, at 71.63 mph, sliding the corners in great style, the first woman to beat those men "and their will to win on this course"!

Kay Petre may not have driven in the wild Targa Florio as had Madam Junek, and she competed only three times at Le Mans, her best performance 13th place, with Miss Champney, in a Riley 9 in 1934 (in 1935 the 1 1/2-litre Riley she shared with Mrs Wisdom retired, as did her Austin 7 in 1937). In 1936 Mrs Petre had taken a works 1 1/2-litre Riley out to Africa for the Grand Prix but, deprived of the special fuel it needed, could only struggle on to 11th place. But she was allowed to try out one of the ultra-powerful rear-engined Auto-Unions, the only woman to do so other than Rosemeyer's wife, Elly Beinhorn.

By this time Lord Austin had given Kay Petre a place in his works Austin racing team, appointing her to drive the blown side-valve car while the men raced the Jamieson twin-cam Austins which Stirling Moss once described, after sampling one, as a miniature Grand Prix kind of car. As an official Austin driver Kay chalked-up notable successes for the Birmingham manufacturer. She drove at the Crystal Palace circuit and at sprint venues, being notably fast at the Shelsley Walsh hill-climb. Here she took the MAC Ladies' Cup in 1935 with the twin rear-wheeled White Riley in 43.8s, won the Shelsley Ladies' Challenge Trophy in 1936 again in the Riley in 47.17s, and with the works Austin won this again in 1937 (she got £25 as well!) with a record ascent in 43.78s. Kay then netted this trophy yet again at the opening 1938 climb, with the time of 46.08s, but only got £15. This did not deter her from again being fastest woman driver at the second 1938 event.

Space precludes a full record of all Kay's successes, but she had taken a Riley to Donington Park in 1936, retired there in the Austin in 1937 when the carburettor needle broke during the BE Trophy Race, and again in the Nuffield Trophy race, soaked in oil when the A7 became incontinent. But she was sixth in the 100-mile handicap on Coronation Day. She was also not averse to competing in those arduous pre-war Monte Carlo Rallies and Alpine Trials, the latter with Miss Jackie Astbury in a Singer, for instance, and the "Monte" from John O'Groats in a Railton, from Stavanger in a Riley and with SCH Davis and wild-man Brackenbury in an open Railton from Umea, and in another Railton from John O'Groats etc.

It all came to an unhappy end when Kay was practising for the 1937 BRDC 500 km race at Brooklands. Reg Parnell's MG Magnette slid down the banking and hit Kay's s v Austin 7, which overturned. She was picked up unconscious and badly injured. Kay eventually recovered sufficiently to become Austin's colour-consultant and the Daily Graphic's motoring correspondent, and she was well enough to drive at Shelsley for Austin in 1938. In later years she lived alone in a London flat and modestly refused to say much about her racing career. I regard her 130 mph laps in the Delage as one of the most courageous performances by a woman driver — she and Gwenda Stewart were the only ladies to gain 130 mph BARC badges in company with 15 men, in the years from 1928 to 1939. W.B.