By Ellen Davis Macaulay

Throughout the 50's and 60's, an era when many women didn't even own a driver's license, rally driver Pat Moss was busy setting world records. Mastering this dangerous sport, winning all the major European championships, Pat Moss proved herself to be a "lady driver" worth reckoning with.

Born in 1936 to a privileged and accomplished English family, Pat spent her childhood years toning her physical and competitive skills. Mum and Dad were champion, competition drivers and older brother, Stirling, went on to become a world renowned race driver. Pat was hard pressed to keep up with her active family and winning as many prestigious prizes as they had became her prime motivation. Fairly breezing through the war years, the Moss family concentrated on showing and jumping horses. Pat's first love was horses. It still is. She did very well in her young years, winning many coveted prizes, including 1950'sJunior Jumper of the Year and a place on the British Olympic equestrian team.

Pat discovered she really enjoyed competing. Nothing stopped her. Knocked unconscious from a falloff her pony, she jumped again the very next day. Another time, refusing to nurse a broken ankle, she went on to ride, plaster cast and all.

When her brother, Stirling, started getting inter­ested in cars, Pat couldn't care less. She viewed his car as nothing but noisy nuisance and resented the time her parents took in accommodating Sterling's race schedule. She couldn't understand why her family was so car crazy. To her, the "beastly" machine's only useful purpose was towing horse boxes to shows or for jumping her beloved ponies over. The last stab in the back was when the family converted her horse trailer into Stirling's auto carrier!

Begrudgingly, Pat accompanied her family to Stirling's events. Out of boredom (she couldn't stand idly watching motor races) she began to study with the mechanics. Her driving debut came as an assis­tant rally navigator with Stirling's manager, Ken Gregory. Even though she got her companions lost and forgot to collect the all important points card, she found she liked rallying and began to participate more and more.

It was around this time, 1954, that Pat teamed up with Ann Wisdom - known to her friends as Wiz. With Pat driving and Wiz navigating, they forged an historic rallying team that proved unbeatable.

"On a track you never lift off. Your foot is either right down as far as it will go on the accelerator or hard on the brake.  It's either hard down on one pedal or the other-otherwise you're wasting time."  Stirling Moss

For the next four years, Pat and Wiz scoured Europe participating in all the toughest rallies. They learned to operate a vehicle under any condition ­snow, ice, mud, fog. And, those are just weather conditions. Among other things they had to contend with were: Breakdowns, fatigue, hunger, thirst, cliffs from hell and no brakes in the Alps! They took drugs to stay awake (all the drivers did back then). But even without drugs, they were subject to hallucinations of the road - Pat took to seeing cats, Wiz to burning cars. If this wasn't enough to unnerve them, decoy marshalls would appear at the oddest places - disguised as lovers necking in a lovers lane or suddenly appearing at the side of the road, dressed in sheets and rattling chains!

Pat was superstitious. Fre­quently, her assigned rally num­ber or license number of the car would add up to the dreaded num­ber 13. Some mishap would al­ways occur when a 13 was involved.

The Healeys also won the team prize in the Alpine: Left to right. Erie Morley; Donald (Little) Morley; John Gott with his co-driver, Bill Shepherd; Pat and Wiz (BMC)

Her lucky number was, of course, 7 and later on she obtained one of the first personalized license plates issued. It read: Pat 7.

BMC put Pat and Wiz on professional status in 1958. Every win brought in not only prize money but also sponsor bonuses. Out of economic necessity, Pat became super knowledgeable about the workings of each and every car she drove. Every little spark plug endorsement could reap more money for her and Wiz. As a result, Pat was an accomplished and innovative mechanic. She went on to win many a race with her car running on a shoestring!

For the 1958 Alps Rally, BMC entered a team of the new Austin Healey 100/6's. Pat was proud of her big new car after all those "nasty little Morris Minors". There was only one problem. At 5'4", she was too short to reach the pedals! Not to worry, the mechanics attached blocks of wood to the pedals and she man­aged fine. Her only other complaint about the 100 / 6 was that it was like living in a vacuum cleaner, it ran so hot. 

With the help of these strong Healeys Pat and Wiz went on to win the European Ladies Championship that year. Lucrative offers from other car companies (i.e, Triumph and Volvo) came pouring in but Pat loyally stayed with BMC.

The Healey 100/6 was discontinued and BMC sent for the more powerful 3000. Pat drove it for the first time in a big German Rally. It was the only really fast car in the class and she won the event handily. Her appraisal of the 3000: "The car was fabulous".

Pat drove many a Big Healey and in fact, her all-time favorite car was ... sorry, guys, it was a Saab. But she did like the Healeys, particularly the 3000, and it probably was her favorite British car. She said later that she was always a little intimidated by the big Healey. They were big and fast but such a handful that she never felt she was quite up to the task. She felt that somehow the car was slightly superior to her. (I bet a lot of us secretly feel the same way about our cars!)

Pat Moss had a lot to do with the mechanical changes BMC implemented in the Healeys. She persuaded them to reduce the top speed as the 3000 was found to be much too fast for rally roads. Also, it was difficult to shift the car around in a hurry so BMC fiddled around with that. When the Spites came out, Pat found them too slow. With her help, the Healeys consistently came out on top in these rallies. The Mercedes people, among others, tried for years to beat the Healeys, without success.

One of Pat's most memorable career moments came in a Big Healey. One she would probably rather forget - her one big crash. It was in the 1960 Lyons-Charbonnieres Rally. There was a lot of ice. Of course, there was nothing unusual about that. The drivers used to attach mats to the tires to keep the car from spinning. But this time, it didn't work. Pat's 3000 spun out. She instinctively ducked. The car slammed sideways into a safety barrier made of railway sleepers, one of which impaled the car through the passen­ger seat (luckily, she was not carrying a navigator) and out again