# Ivy Cummings

Ivy Cummings (1901–1971) was an early racing car driver, reputedly the youngest person ever to lap Brooklands. In 2009 her Bugatti car sold for over £2m.

## Biography

Ivy Leona Cummings was born in Edmonton on 27 October 1901 to Sydney George and Edith Cummings (née Mann). She had two younger brothers, Sydney Edward, and John. She became a famous British racing car driver as well as running a garage in Putney Bridge Road, London, where she repaired and sold cars. In 1913 she claimed to have taken her father's car and completed a lap of Brooklands aged 12.
During World War I, Cummings worked in a convalescent home for injured soldiers, and would take them out for trips in her own car.
After the war, around 1919, she began racing. She drove a Coupe de l’Auto Sunbeam 12/16 in a race in France in 1921. In 1922 Cummings won the Duke of York Long Distance Handicap in the same car. She came third in the Essex Senior Short Handicap and then second in the Essex Junior Long Handicap.
June and September 1923 saw her win a Bexhill speed trial in a Bugatti. The second race was in Black Bess, the 5000cc 1913 Bugatti Type 18. Her father Sydney, a car dealer, bought her the car and she named it after Dick Turpin's horse. She had been driving this car since March so it may have been the same Bugatti throughout, though she did own two. Cummings won the Skegness Speed Trials in this car in 1925. She was one of two women in the event, the other being Cecil Christie in a Vauxhall.
In August 1926, she entered the Grand Prix de Boulogne driving a Bugatti but crashed the car during the race, rolling it. She was uninjured and won a cup for highest average speed.
Cummings also raced a GN Akela. This was the car she usually used in hillclimbs. She took part in South Harting climb, the Arundell Speed Trial, the Spread Eagle Hill climb, the Aston Clinton hillclimb, the Brighton Speed Trials and the Herne Bay Speed Trails. She also competed in Junior Car Club High Speed Trial at Brookland and the JCC Half Day Trial. Including the GN and the Bugatti Cummings drove a Frazer Nash and a Riley.
In 1928, fellow racing driver Winifred Pink wrote that she considered Cummings to be one of the few women in complete control of a car at 80 miles per hour, alongside Mrs Scott and Ruth Urquhart Dykes.

## Personal life

Cummings married Stanley Hughes Simpson, a motor engineer, on 25 June 1925 in Holy Trinity, Brompton. In 1928, she married again, to radiologist Dr. Henry Warren-Collins. Shortly after she stopped racing regularly. She stopped running the garages herself in 1928, and gave birth to a daughter Cynthia in 1932. Her brother Sydney earned his pilot's licence at Brooklands and was killed flying with the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1940. Cummings died on 4 December 1971.

## Legacy

Her Bugatti Black Bess, by this time only one of three surviving models, was auctioned by Bonhams in 2009 for £2,176,617. It is now on display in the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands.

## References and sources

* ↑ "England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915".
* ↑ "1939 England and Wales Register".
* ↑ "Sydney George Cummings". Graces Guide. 22 March 1913. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ "Ivy Cummings". Graces Guide. 9 June 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ "Ivy Cummings changing a tyre on a 1925 Singer 10/26, London, c1925..." Getty Images. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* 1 2 Williams, J. (2014). A Contemporary History of Women's Sport, Part One: Sporting Women, 1850-1960. Routledge Research in Sports History. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-74666-9. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ Clarsen, G. (2008). Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists. The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-0514-8. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* 1 2 3 "The Fascination of Motor Racing By Ivy Cummings". Motor Sport Magazine. 7 July 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ Rothman, Lily; Ronk, Liz (25 January 2016). "Downton Abbey Backstory: Real Photos of 1920s Auto Racing". Time. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ "Women racers at Brooklands". Motor Sport Magazine. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
* ↑ "Roland Garros/Black Bess Bugatti Part 3: Ivy Cummings". www.velocetoday.com. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
* 1 2 3 "Commercial Times » The World's Largest Collection of Automotive Art" (in Georgian). Archived from the original on 12 June 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
* ↑ "WOMAN MOTORIST". Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947). 5 August 1922. p. 18.
* 1 2 "Ivy Cummings". Speedqueens (in Afrikaans). 24 October 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ Derrick, M.; Clay, S. (2017). Million Dollar Classics: The World's Most Expensive Cars. Book Sales. ISBN 978-0-7858-3545-5. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ Markmann, C.L.; Sherwin, M. (2014). Builders and Drivers of Sports Cars. Edizioni Savine. ISBN 978-88-96365-48-9. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ "MOTORING: BRITISH MAKES SUCCEED". Referee (Sydney, NSW : 1886 - 1939). 1 September 1926. p. 17.
* ↑ "BROOKLANDS THRILLS". Express (Adelaide, SA : 1922 - 1923). 14 November 1922. p. 1.
* ↑ "Westminster Gazette - Monday 30 August 1926". Retrieved 12 June 2020 – via British Newspaper Archive.
* ↑ "The Woman Engineer Vol 1". The IET. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* 1 2 "The Woman Engineer Vol 2". The IET. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
* ↑ "A Lady Makes Fastest Time". Daily Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1903 - 1926). 17 June 1923. p. 22.
* ↑ "Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932".
* ↑ "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index".
* ↑ "England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index".
* ↑ "Great Britain, Royal Aero Club Aviators' Certificates, 1910-1950".
* ↑ "ATA Men - 1939". www.afleetingpeace.org. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
* ↑ "THE LONDON GAZETTE, 27 JANUARY, 1928" (PDF).
* ↑ "Champion motorist Ivy Cummings seated at the wheel of her new car..." Getty Images.
* ↑ "Seagrave's Speed". Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938). 17 November 1926. p. 42.
* ↑ "Black Bess Bugatti Type 18". YouTube.
* ↑ "Black Bess, famous Bugatti Type 18 goes under the hammer". New Atlas. 30 January 2009. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
* ↑ "Bonhams : 'Black Bess' - The ex-Roland Garros/Louis Coatalen/Colonel Giles/Peter Hampton. 1913 5-litre Bugatti Type 18 Sports Two-Seater.,1913 Bugatti Type 18 5-litre Sports Two-seater Chassis no. 474 Engine no. 474". www.bonhams.com. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
* ↑ "Bugatti Type 18 Sports Two-Seater 'Black Bess'". Louwman Museum. 4 August 2013. Retrieved 12 June 2020.