"The history of the American automobile is a can of worms that would make any self-respecting bilateral invertebrate blanch," wrote Beverly Rae Kimes, who was recently hailed by the Antique Automobile Club of America as "one of the greatest automotive writers of our time."
Beverly Kimes was born on Aug. 17, 1939 in West Chicago, Ill. She earned a bachelor's from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a master's from Penn State, both in journalism. When she failed to find work as a theater writer, she took a job as a secretary at a fledgling car magazine. That first job would lead her to a career as one of the nation's pre-eminent historians of automobiles.
Beverly Kimes claimed that her main qualification when she became the first employee hired at Automobile Quarterly was a driver's license. But she quickly advanced from typing and stenography, to writing or editing more than 20 books and hundreds of articles.
In an interview with Contemporary Authors in 2002, Ms. Kimes said her success in "a field dominated by men might have been difficult save for a decision of my parents." That was naming her Beverly, which can be construed as a man's name. "By the time word was generally out that I was not a man, I had published more than one hundred articles on automotive history and my reputation could easily survive the fact that I was writing about something women are not supposed to write about," she said.
Beverly Kimes rose to be top editor of Automobile Quarterly, and then edited publications for the Classic Car Club of America. She went on to win almost every award in automotive journalism, and became a judge and announcer at classic car meets.
Beverly Rae Kimes died on May 12 at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She was 68.
Beverly Kimes' works include:
- Speed, Style, And Beauty : Cars From The Ralph Lauren Collection
- Packard : A History of the Motor Car And the Company
- Pioneers, Engineers, And Scoundrels : The Dawn Of The Automobile In America
- The Star and The Laurel: The centennial history of Daimler, Mercedes and Benz 1886-1986
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/sports/othersports/20kimes.html
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=126365
| 
