Rosemary Smith joins FIVA Hall of Fame

The international federation of historic vehicles, FIVA has announced nine inductees to its Heritage Hall of Fame for 2022, judges upon by an international panel that included TV personality and car collector Jay Leno, classic racer and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, and car designer and former Nissan senior vice president Shiro Nakamura. 

Among the star-studded nine selected this year are Ireland’s queen of motorsport, Rosemary Smith, who was a pioneering female in the male-dominated sport of rallying in the 1960s in particular, winning many ladies’ prizes as well as winning outright the 1965 Tulip Rally in the Netherlands. She hasn’t slowed up much since, regularly taking part in classic and motorsport commemoration events today and becoming the oldest person ever to drive a modern Formula 1 car at a Renault media event in 2017. Rosemary was nominated for the hall of fame award by the Irish Veteran & Vintage Car Club, who are FIVA’s representative in Ireland.

The other eight names chosen for this year’s FIVA hall of fame list are equally star-studded, and include Italian motorsport boss Cesare Fiorio, German rally driver Walter Rohrl and Dutch car collector and founder of the Louwman Museum, Evert Louwman. Deceased figures from motoring’s past were also honoured in the list, including Italian designer and philanthropist Battista Farina, Czech lady racer Elisabeth Junek and Honda founder Soichiro Honda. 

We at Irish Vintage Scene would like to add our congratulations to Rosemary Smith on this richly-deserved honour. Further details on the Hall of Fame heroes can be found at https://fiva.org/en/heritage-hall-of-fame/

By Andrew Pollock, Editor