Ursula Wirth

Wirth was a rural veterinary assistant as a young woman, driving from farm to farm to treat animals. Finding that she enjoyed driving, she became interested in rally racing. She placed well in a rally at Västergötland in 1960, and soon teamed up with another woman rally driver and veterinary assistant, Ewy Rosqvist-von Korff.^[1][2] Together, they won several international road rally competitions in the early 1960s,^[3] including the Gran Premio Argentina in 1962.^[4]

At the 1962 Argentina rally, Wirth and Rosqvist were not only the winning team, but the first two women to enter the six-stage, 2871-mile race; they won all six stages and set a speed record with their win.^[5] The two Swedish women were provided with bodyguards during their time in Argentina, for fear that they would be attacked by racing fans.^[6] Reports of their win were accompanied by headlines like "Pretty Dolls Whip Men in Grand Prix",^[7] and "Swedish Blondes Break Tradition in Grand Prix."^[8]

Wirth and Rosqvist won the Coupe des Dames at the 1963 Monte Carlo rally.^[9] Wirth worked with English driver Pat Moss in 1964,^[10] and left racing in 1965, but taught driving for almost thirty years in Stockholm. In 1969, she appeared in the film Monte Carlo or Bust!.^[11]

Wirth married television presenter Magnus Banck in 1965, and left rally racing. She was widowed when Banck died in 1981. She remarried in 1987, to Ingmar Fernström; he died in 2014. Ursula Wirth Fernström died in 2019, just before her 85th birthday, in Stockholm.^[12]