Sue Baker, the journalist who ignored all the signs that said women did not understand cars, and who was the Observer’s motoring correspondent for 13 years, died last week.
Long before Jeremy Clarkson and his band took the wheel of the BBC’s car show, Baker was a presenter on Top Gear, appearing on more than 100 episodes from 1980. It was originally intended, she recalled, as an informative consumer magazine, simply letting viewers know “which new cars are coming on the market and what we think of them”.
Recommending six of the best cabriolets for Observer readers in 1995, Baker’s final year at this newspaper, she set off at typical pace: “Some drivers have filthy habits. In the past couple of weeks, I have witnessed smouldering cigarette ends, chocolate bar wrappers, plugs of spent chewing gum and even a banana skin being flung from car and lorry windows. Driving a convertible in sultry summer weather turns you into a reluctant connoisseur of flying detritus.”
A career that also saw her launch the Motor Racing News Service, based at Brands Hatch, continued with pieces for Saga Magazine. On news of her death from motor neurone disease, her admirer and friend Geraldine Herbert, motoring editor for the Sunday Independent in Ireland, hailed her as “a brilliant journalist” who “blazed a trail for women in a man’s world”. The Guild of Motoring Writers, of which Baker was vice-president and a former chair, saluted her as “a pioneer for women… in journalism”, while her family, including children, Ian and Hannah, and grandchildren, Tom and George, said: “She had a life and career that many would envy, but did it all with such grace that she was admired and respected by all who knew her….. Thank you to everyone who has supported her over the last few years as she battled with MND.”
• Vanessa Thorpe is the Observer’s arts and media correspondent
