Liane Engeman, glamorous star of 1960s British motorsport nicknamed the ‘blonde terror’
She cheated death after crashing her single-seat Formula Ford in Brazil by escaping from her overturned car as it sank into a swamp
Liane Engeman, who has died aged 81, almost became the first Dutch woman to enter Formula One, a chance she was denied by circumstance rather than any lack of talent.
Nicknamed the “blonde terror”, she was well-known on the British motor-racing scene, and held the lap record at Silverstone until Emerson Fittipaldi usurped her. Possessing a classic Sixties glamour that often brought the pit lane to a stop, she became the face of Alfa Romeo in its brochures of the period.
Her bravery was evident in Brazil in 1970, when she crashed her single-seat Formula Ford and narrowly cheated death by escaping from her overturned car as it sank into a swamp. She was left with a permanent neck injury.
Liane Engeman spent several years in England, and also acted and modelled. She appeared in the 1966 film Grand Prix, was a double for Ursula Andress in Casino Royale in 1967, and took the lead role in the Dunlop-sponsored film Vive le Sport in 1970 in a Mini Cooper.
In 1964 she was the test driver for Sydney Allard’s Dragon dragster prototype at its high-speed testing at Blackbushe Airport runway, where she was interviewed for television by Dickie Davies.
A blue-eyed bombshell, she had a rule of not dating the racing drivers who pursued her, saying: “No, it would have prevented me from racing these guys as hard as I wanted.”
Liane Engeman did not suffer fools gladly, and had several disagreements with team managers unused to dealing with a competitive and hard-headed woman, but – as she later observed – she did it her way.
Jim Clark, the double world champion with Lotus who would die in a racing accident in 1968, introduced her to the Lotus boss Colin Chapman, with whom she later entered discussions for a potential Formula One racing contract (negotiations were also being held with BRM). But just as her first Formula One drive was looking like a reality in 1973, she unexpectedly became pregnant and afterwards retired from motorsport: her master plan to win whatever the personal cost had collapsed.
Cornelia Catherina Johanna Maria Engeman was born on March 24 1944 at Haarlem in the Netherlands. As a teenager she worked in her father’s taxi company and she was a competent driver by the age of 15. A kart crash left her recuperating for three months.
Liane Engeman’s racing story began when a passing motorist offered her a lift at a bus stop – she had no idea that he was Rob Slotemaker, an instructor at the Zandvoort racing circuit. She began training there, out-driving all the male students at the racing school through raw talent.
By the age of 19, she was racing in the Dutch 1200cc Formula Vee single-seat championship. She also rode motorcycles, notably a Kawasaki 900.
She launched her racing career properly in England, and briefly worked part-time as a “Bunny” waitress in London’s Playboy Club to finance her driving. She was taken on by Alan Mann Racing and from 1966 onwards got her hands on a tuned-up Hillman Imp and the famous Mini Cooper S.
She was soon consistently in the points in the Touring Car category races and also raced a Brabham BT15 in Formula Three. At Florida’s 12 Hours of Sebring endurance event in 1967 she raced in the Ring-Free Oil Company’s “Motor Maids” Team, co-driving with the American racer Janet Guthrie in a French Matra D-jet5S lightweight two-seater; they won their class despite being up against some major names in racing.
The team returned to Sebring in 1968 with the unwieldy AMC Javelin but failed to finish and Liane Engeman was unjustly blamed by the Australian driver Paul Hawkins for his crash into a Porsche. Even Porsche’s racing boss, Baron Fritz Huschke von Hanstein, felt obliged to defend her after Hawkins called her a “bloody woman… the place for a woman is in the kitchen… tending a cradle… or in the bed.”
To capitalise on the ensuing furore, Liane Engeman flew to New York, arriving in a blaze of publicity, and teamed up again with the Motor Maids at the Florida Grand Prix of Endurance, winning their class. A third place at the Bahamas Speed Week driving a single-seater further proved her point.
In the 1968-69 season she entered the European Touring car series in the Surbiton-based David J Bond Team, Ford Anglia; she was fourth at her home circuit of Zandvoort. Bond also supplied her with a Pringett Mistrale single-seater, and dubbed her the “fastest” female driver.
A drive in a BMW-powered Elva further raised her profile. She competed in the British Formula Vee, with a fourth place at Lydden Hill in the Brabham BT21, and drove in the 24 Hours of Spa race in a factory-supported Alfa 1750 saloon, securing a class win and 13th place overall.
In 1970, under contract to Ford, she drove in the Formula Ford series in Europe. She also co-drove the new Twin Cam Escort with Frans Lubin for the Frami Racing team, winning several races. Then the ELF SRT Holland Alfa Romeo team recruited her, but she clashed with the team owner Ger Oosterman, who sacked her.
In 1971 she took up a place with Toine Hezemans’s Autodelta Team Alfa Romeo but illness prevented her debut. She competed at the 1971 Spa 24 Hours for the Alpina team with Christine Beckers in a BMW 2800CS, but suffered engine failure. Back at Alfa Romeo, she drove Hezemans’s own 1300GTA Junior to third overall at Zandvoort.
In 1972, she achieved fourth place at the fearsome Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit driving a Ford Capri RS 2600 for the Paul Neerpasch team. She then ran well at Hockenheim but the Capri failed.
That year Liane Engeman married the Dutch carpet entrepreneur Piet Hein Keijzer. Following her surprise pregnancy, she chose to retire from racing in 1974.
She left Amsterdam in 1980 to live near Marbella, but her marriage ended in divorce. She opened a club and drove a blue Saab convertible into her seventies.
She is survived by her twins, a boy and a girl.
Liane Engeman, born March 24 1944, died February 12 2026
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
