{{Short description|American automotive writer (1954–2024)}} {{for|American programmer|Jean Jennings Bartik}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see :Template:Infobox writer/doc --> |name = Jean Jennings |birth_name = Jean Marie Lienert |image = |imagesize = |caption = |pseudonym = Jean Lindamood<br/> Jean Lindamood Jenkins |birth_date = {{birth date|1954|2|3}} |birth_place = Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |death_date = {{death date and age|2024|12|16|1954|2|3}} |death_place = Jackson, Michigan, U.S. |occupation = Writer, ''Car and Driver'' (1980–1985)<br/> Writer, cofounder ''Automobile'' (1985–2014)<br/>Editor-in-chief, ''Automobile'' (2000–2014)<br> President, ''Automobile'' (2006–2014)<br> Founder, JeanKnowsCars (2012–2016)<br/>Correspondent, ''Good Morning America'' |genre = Automotive journalism |website = {{url|www.jeanknowscars.com}} (2012-2016, dormant) |spouse = {{marriage|Thomas (Tom) Mason Lindamood|1979|end = divorced}} <br> Timothy (Tim) P. Jennings<ref>[https://www.motortrend.com/news/vile-gossip-you-want-lindamood-i-give-you-lindamood-2-135472/ Vile Gossip: You want Lindamood? I give you Lindamood.]</ref> }}
'''Jean Marie Jennings''' (née '''Lienert'''; February 3, 1954 – December 16, 2024), also known as '''Jean Lindamood''', was an American journalist, publisher and television personality covering the automotive industry. She focused on making the industry more accessible for others<ref name="accessible">{{cite web |title = 'Evening With Automotive Restoration' Features Expert in Car Journalism |publisher = McPherson College |author = |date = April 22, 2015 |quote = For decades, Jean Jennings has been helping make the automotive world accessible to non-experts |url = https://www.mcpherson.edu/2015/04/evening-with-automotive-restoration-features-expert-in-car-journalism//}}</ref><ref name="tribune">{{cite web |title = Jean Jennings Joins Tribune |publisher = Tribune Content Agency |author = |date = |quote = Tribune Content Agency is pleased to announce the addition of automotive writer and editor Jean Jennings to its roster of content contributors. |url = https://tribunecontentagency.com/email/2014/4805-promo-jean/r2.html/ }}{{Dead link|date=December 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref> and for mentoring new automotive writers, editors and designers.<ref name="halloffame">{{cite web |title = Jean Jennings |publisher = Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame |author = |date = |url = https://mijournalismhalloffame.org/jean-jennings/}}</ref>
After writing for ''Car and Driver'' (1980–1985), she co-founded ''Automobile'', where she continued to write her column ''Vile Gossip'' after becoming the magazine's editor in chief (2000–2014) and president (2006–2014).
She was the automotive correspondent for ''Good Morning America'' (1994–2000)<ref name="GMA">{{cite web |title = Jean Jennings looks back at the North American International Auto Show |publisher = Hagerty Media |author = |date = May 14, 2016 |url = https://www.hagerty.com/media/archived/media-daze/}}</ref> and the Oxygen network.<ref name="Jump"/> She was later the Chairman, CEO and host of the self-branded automotive website and blog, ''JeanKnowsCars'' (2012–2016), wrote articles for LinkedIn, and edited the book ''Road Trips, Head Trips, and Other Car-Crazed Writings''. She guested on ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,'' convinced Jerry Seinfeld to freelance an article for ''Automobile'' magazine,<ref name="guested">{{cite web |title = RIP, Jean Jennings |publisher = TheTruthAboutCars |author = Tim Healey |date = December 16, 2024 |url = https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/news-blog/rip-jean-jennings-44510845}}</ref>; hosted her website JeanKnowsCars.com along with its corollary Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@Jeanknowscars channel]; and continued to write the ''Vile Gossip'' column intermittently for Autoblog.com (2020).<ref name="continues">{{cite web |title = That time Chuck Yeager and I flew low over California in a yellow Corvette |publisher = Autoblog |author = Jean Jennings |date = December 11, 2020 |url = https://www.autoblog.com/2020/12/11/chuck-yeager-chevy-corvette-indy-500-jean-jennings/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8_dD1mZm50JnE9amVhbitqZW5uaW5ncyt5ZWxsb3crY29ydmV0dGUrJmF0Yj12MS0xJmlhPXdlYg&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACytw49-nycn_5E5fGfwLkEs_T5ZvUSAZdM0vnHgN45cNOWQy7kOguSrRzkTMsf01nEqJfR-Dj3ght3grsPdqAuWl3YDnUcuKQ1pk57eRAPduXxeP-JONtWi90_jxL8aFAU16sED5ySsQ9-CoJGU4sY0kYEsvO25Ct2bh5InYKOl}}</ref>
With Jennings as editor and President, ''Automobile'' was the first car magazine to win a National Magazine Award — for a column by Jamie Kitman. Jennings herself was honored by the Detroit Press Club Foundation; won the Motor Press Guild’s 2016 Dean Batchelor Award for Lifetime Achievement; was a 2021 inductee to the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame<ref name="cdobit"/> and won the ''Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism.''<ref name="awards">{{cite web |title = Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame profiles: Jean Jennings |publisher = Michigan State University |author = |date = March 11, 2021 |url = https://comartsci.msu.edu/about/newsroom/news/michigan-journalism-hall-fame-profiles-jean-jennings}}</ref>
David E. Davis, with whom Jennings co-founded ''Automobile'' magazine, said Jennings "changed the nature of the readers' response" to automotive journalism.<ref name=changed>{{cite web |title = Pioneering Magazine Editor Jean Jennings Has Died at 70 |publisher = Eastwood.com |author = Bryan Joslin |date = December 16, 2024 |url = https://www.eastwood.com/garage/pioneering-magazine-editor-jean-jennings-has-died-at-70/?srsltid=AfmBOopYEilzUdCyF_qJ1_8VZ7y8mhFVbEnOnmTIS4fsBnjAmJSDW7NT}}</ref>
==Background== Jennings was born in Detroit on February 3, 1954.<ref>{{cite web |title = Jean Jennings, 1954–2024 |publisher = MotorTrend |author = MotorTrend Staff |date = December 16, 2024 |quote = Jean was born on February 3, 1954, in Detroit |url = https://www.motortrend.com/news/jean-jennings-1954-2024/}}</ref> She grew up in a Catholic family with five brothers<ref name="cdobit"/><ref name="nee"/><ref name="five">{{cite web |title = Notorious Women: Elizabeth Junek |publisher = Jeanknowscars |author = Jean Jennings |date = March 6, 2014 |url = http://www.jeanknowscars.com/you-auto-know/fast-women/notorious-women-elizabeth-junek/|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140607054227/http://www.jeanknowscars.com/you-auto-know/fast-women/notorious-women-elizabeth-junek/ |archive-date = June 7, 2014 }}</ref> on a farm near New Baltimore, Michigan, the daughter of Audrey Jean Lienert (née Gagnon)<ref name="nee">{{cite web |title = ANTHONY MICHAEL LIENERT |publisher = Legacy.com |author = |date = August 21, 2015 |quote = LIENERT ANTHONY MICHAEL January 8, 1963 - August 21, 2015. Tony was valued for his expertise in trees and entomology and was working on an M.S. in horticulture at MSU. He died of complications from diabetes. Survived by wife Teresa Westbrook Lienert; mother Audrey Lienert (née Gagnon); siblings Paul (Anita), Jean Jennings (Tim), Charles (Joann), and Thomas; six nieces and nephews; mother-in-law Nellie Westbrook, and many relatives and friends. Preceded in death by father Robert Lienert (d. 1988). Mass Tuesday, September 1, 11 a.m. at St. Mary of Redford. |url = https://www.legacy.com/amp/obituaries/detroitnews/180091691}}</ref><ref name="hospice">{{cite web |title = The Business of Hospice: One Family's Story |publisher = Anita Lienert |author = |date = June 30, 2017 |url = https://anitasway.com/2017/06/30/the-business-of-hospice-one-familys-story/}}</ref> and Robert Marcellus Lienert. Her father had a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern,<ref name="degree">{{cite web |title = The Badass Women of Automotive: Jean Jennings |publisher = Motorhead Mama |author = |date = January 29, 2018 |url = https://motorheadmama.com/badass-women-automotive-jean-jennings/}}</ref> was a copy editor at the ''Detroit Free Press'', and later became the editor of ''Automotive News''.<ref name="ref5">{{cite magazine |title = Fast Woman |magazine = The New Yorker |author = Susan Orlean |date = February 12, 2001 |url = https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/02/19/fast-woman}}</ref> Her oldest brother, Paul Lienert, became a noted automotive journalist, managing editor of ''AutoWeek'', and a correspondent for Thomson Reuters. Jennings once described her family as "the Barrymores of automotive writing."<ref name="barrymores">{{cite news |title = Car Talk: Auto Magazine Publishers Even Talk Shop on Vacation |newspaper = Petoskey News-Review |author = Lisa Babcock |date = February 22, 1993 |url = https://www.newspapers.com/image/555036716/?match=1&terms=%22jean%20lindamood%22}}</ref>
Having learned about cars from her father,<ref name="nee"/> Jennings recalled that he routinely brought home new and interesting cars for his work. He once took her, age 7, and two brothers for a test drive from their house in a brand new supercharged Studebaker Avanti — driving it inadvertently into a ditch at high speed but quickly recovering to the pavement before returning home, noting that their mother was not to hear the details of the test drive.<ref name="Avanti">{{cite web |title = My Father's Avanti Test Drive |publisher = jeanknowscars.com |author = Jean Jennings |date = |url = http://www.jeanknowscars.com/life-with-jean/the-lunacy/my-fathers-avanti-test-drive/|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150404001659/http://www.jeanknowscars.com/life-with-jean/the-lunacy/my-fathers-avanti-test-drive/ |archive-date = April 4, 2015 }}</ref>
At 14, Jennings was an exchange student in Ecuador where she learned to drive in a Jeep-like Toyota, in the Andes mountains.<ref name="learned to drive">{{cite web | title = Talking Shop With Automotive Expert and Media Maven Jean Jennings | publisher = Linked In | author = Micah Wright | date = June 30, 2016 | url = https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/talking-shop-automotive-expert-media-maven-jean-micah-jean-jennings?trk=public_profile_article_view}}</ref><ref name="autonomous">{{cite web | title = While You Weren't Paying Attention, Your Car Learned How to Drive | publisher = Linked In | author = Jean Jennings | date = February 29, 2016 | url = https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/while-you-werent-paying-attention-your-car-learned-how-jean-jennings?trk=read_related_article-card_title}}</ref> She attended St. Mary's Queen of Creation school from 1960 to 1970, and later attended the University of Michigan (1970-1972), dropping out after three incomplete semesters.<ref name="learned to drive"/>
{{quote box|width=20em|quote= '''''Jean Jennings,<br/> on her experiences as a taxi driver:'''''<br/><br/> "I was working at the Post Office and I really hated it. I was a hippie back then, living in a house with a whole bunch of people. One of them said, “They need somebody to drive a cab and I can’t drive the all-night shift tonight.” I figured, it’s a desperate situation and I love driving. There was no training, none. I bought a used car and painted it yellow. I taught myself how to work on the car. It was a real fun thing. They’re just talking to you and then they give you money and it’s cash. If you needed money, all you had to do was get in the car and drive. On Friday, I would go out, make enough money to go buy beer, and then go home."<ref name=taxidriver3>{{cite web |title = Meet the Hat-Loving Woman Who Edits Automobile Magazine |publisher = TheCut.com |author = Kat Stoeffel |date = December 19, 2012 |url = https://www.thecut.com/2012/12/this-hat-loving-woman-edits-automobile-magazine.html}}</ref>
"Once on the road, it was as you would expect. Old ladies wanted me to drive slowly, special needs kids wanted me to drive as fast as possible and honk the horn a lot, and out of town conventioneers told me rape jokes while sitting directly behind my head as I drove them to the airport.
Once I picked up a guy who made every hair on my body stand up when he got in the back seat. I secretly opened the mic button and talked for my life all the way to his (bad neighborhood) destination. The next day I read in the paper that he’d escaped from the State Hospital, murdered his wife, then he called a cab. Mine.
I took a bank robber to a local town to rob a bank. I picked up the actor Jason Robards. I carried a drunk whose head was covered in blood from a bottle fight over my shoulder and into his house. I propped him on the toilet and cleaned him off with alcohol while he screamed bloody murder."<ref name=taxidriver2>{{cite web |title = Talking Shop With Automotive Expert and Media Maven Jean Jennings - by Micah Wright, Autos Cheat Sheet |publisher = Autos Cheat Sheet |author = Micah Wright |date = June 30, 2016 |url = https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/talking-shop-automotive-expert-media-maven-jean-micah-jean-jennings}}</ref> }} At eighteen,<ref name="degree"/> she became a taxi driver. She bought a used Plymouth Satellite<ref name="satellite">{{cite web | title = Jean Jennings, Owner/Operator Yellow Cab | publisher = LinkedIn | author = Jean Jennings | quote = My first cab was a Plymouth Satellite with a 318 V8 engine. It was totaled by a Domino's Pizza delivery driver who ran a red light. My second cab was a Plymouth Fury with a 318 V-8 engine and a white interior. | url = https://www.linkedin.com/in/jean-jennings-85206110}}</ref> with a 318 V-8, painted it yellow, installed a roof light and a meter, and joined the Yellow Cab Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as an owner/operator. When that car was totaled, her second cab was a Plymouth Fury, also with a 318 V8.<ref name="taxidriver">,{{cite web | title = Taxi Driver Revisited | publisher = Jeanknowscars.com | author = Jean Jennings | date = February 27, 2014 | url = http://www.jeanknowscars.com/life-with-jean/the-lunacy/taxi-driver-revisited/| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140617042236/http://www.jeanknowscars.com/life-with-jean/the-lunacy/taxi-driver-revisited/ | archive-date = June 17, 2014 }}</ref> While at Yellow Cab, she redefined the city taxicab boundaries, trained and created a training manual for new cab drivers, and was elected president of the Yellow Cab board. She married Tom Lindamood, a taxi dispatcher, in 1979.<ref name="hatloving">{{cite web | title = Meet the Hat-Loving Woman Who Edits Automobile Magazine | publisher = New York | date = December 19, 2012 | author = Kat Stoeffel | quote = My first husband was a dispatcher and sent out one female cab driver who was murdered by a passenger on his way to a nearby town to try to murder his girlfriend. | url = https://www.thecut.com/2012/12/this-hat-loving-woman-edits-automobile-magazine.html}}</ref> Five years later, with the taxi driving having become increasingly dangerous,<ref name="hatloving"/> Jennings became a driver at Chrysler's Chelsea Proving Grounds and later worked at Chrysler's Impact Lab, where she crashed cars, test drove cars, welded,<ref name="degree"/><ref name="nyt1">{{cite news | title = David Davis Jr. Dies at 80 | work = The New York Times | date = March 29, 2011 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/media/29davis.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=david%20e%20davis&st=cse| last1 = Grimes | first1 = William }}</ref> and wrote for its award-winning union newsletter.<ref name="hatloving"/>
In 2014, Jennings co-founded the annual Caden's Car Show with C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, celebrating the life of eleven-year-old Caden Bowles, a car enthusiast who died while waiting for a heart transplant.<ref name="caden">{{cite web | title = History of Caden's Car Show | publisher = Mott Children's Hospital | url = https://www.mottchildren.org/team-caden/car-show}}</ref> Jennings had Type 2 Diabetes, sat on the board of directors of the Metro Detroit and Southeast Michigan chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and had emceed the organization's Promise Ball Gala.<ref name="diabetes">{{cite web | title = Automobile Magazine President Jean Jennings confronts diabetes head-on | publisher = Anne Arbor News | date = May 4, 2013 | author = Janet Miller | url = http://www.annarbor.com/news/automobile-magazines-jennings-confronts-diabetes-head-on-emcees-promise-ball/}}</ref>
In a 2016 interview, she counted as large influences on her life a Catholic upbringing "with a heavy emphasis on reading, Latin, and the pursuit of nothing less than perfection"<ref name="learned to drive"/> — along with a disruptive bent brought out by working on an underground newspaper; and a heavy desire to escape her dirt-road, middle-of-nowhere childhood, the latter facilitated by learning to drive at an early age.<ref name="learned to drive"/> She nonetheless retired to a house "a dirt road in middle-of-nowhere Michigan"<ref name="Jump"/> with her husband, Tim Jennings.<ref name="Jump"/>
Jennings died from complications of Alzheimers disease on December 16, 2024, at age 70.<ref name="cdobit">{{cite web |title = Jean Jennings Has Died; Former Car and Driver Editor Was a Pioneering Auto Journalist |publisher = Car and Driver |author = Joe Lorio |date = December 16, 2024 |url = https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a63202068/jean-jennings-obituary/}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Jean Jennings, 1954-2024 |url=https://www.motortrend.com/news/jean-jennings-1954-2024/ |website=Motor Trend |access-date=December 23, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241219113911/https://www.motortrend.com/news/jean-jennings-1954-2024/ |archive-date=December 19, 2024 |date=December 16, 2024}}</ref>
==Career== In 1980, at her brother Paul's encouragement, one month after she was laid off at Chrysler, she applied at ''Car and Driver'' and was hired as a staff writer by editor David E. Davis (1930–2011). Though she considers herself a poor automotive prognosticator,<ref name="learned to drive"/> in the November 1984 issue of ''Car and Driver'', she presciently ended her Oldsmobile Calais review, "won't it be embarrassing if, twenty years hence, the division goes under because all its customers have died?"<ref name="Olds">{{cite web |title = Vintage Review: 1985 Oldsmobile Calais Supreme – GM Deadly Sin #26 – Car And Driver Predicts Death |publisher = Curbside Classic |author = |date = November 26, 2016 |url = https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-review/vintage-review-1985-oldsmobile-calais-supreme-gm-deadly-sin-26-car-and-driver-predicts-death/}}</ref> The division folded sixteen years later, in 2000.
In 1985 she left ''Car and Driver'' with Davis, co-founding ''Automobile'' magazine and becoming its first executive editor. Under the motto "No Boring Cars," the magazine competed directly with three other successful automotive magazines, ''Motor Trend, Car and Driver'' and ''Road & Track'' with <ref name=grimes2011/> heavier stock paper<ref name=grimes2011>{{cite news |last=Grimes |first=William |date=March 28, 2011 |title=David Davis Jr. Dies at 80; Elevated Automotive Press |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/media/29davis.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=david%20e%20davis&st=cse |newspaper=The New York Times }}</ref> and the only one of the four to be perfect bound (not stapled)<ref name="learned to drive"/> , with four-color printed photography and ground-breaking art direction. Within a year, the other three major car magazines changed to perfect binding and full color printing, hiring new editors and art directors as well.<ref name="learned to drive"/> She became Editor-in-Chief in 2000 at ''Automobile'', and President in 2006.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.impa.org/ken_purdy_award_winners.cfm |title=IMPA Ken Purdy Award Winners |access-date=October 29, 2019 |archive-date=June 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609045014/http://www.impa.org/ken_purdy_award_winners.cfm |url-status=dead }}</ref>
At ''Automobile'', Jennings became known for her automotive adventures with some of the most prominent and important people in and out of automotive culture. She spent 9,000 miles in the first of Brock Yates' One Lap of America with Parnelli Jones in a panel van disguised as a Stroh's Brewery truck; was close to auto writer and racer Denise McCluggage for 30 years; mooned race car drivers Dan Gurney and Phil Hill; drove to the top of the world with Swedish rally driver Erik Carlsson; spent a day in 1990 and drank Johnnie Walker Red with Porsche design chief Tony Lapine and 90-year old champion Bugatti driver Eliška Junková (Elizabeth Junek) at her apartment in the Swedish embassy in Prague, just after the Berlin Wall fell;<ref name="learned to drive"/> rode motorcycles across China with Malcolm Smith; followed the Camel Trophy in Madagascar; raced in Baja with a Russian circle-track driver; navigated in the 2000-mile Pirelli-Classic Marathon vintage rally in a 1965 MGB across the Alps with Stirling Moss; and in 1983 drove a yellow prototype C4 Corvette with Chuck Yeager.<ref name="continues"/>
Irrepressible and inimitable, Jennings once transformed herself into an undercover spokesmodel at the 1988 North American International Auto Show, reciting a memorized sales pitch for the Eagle Premier — wearing a copper lamé gown, heavily teased hair and such heavily glamorized makeup she was left largely unrecognizable.<ref name="GMA"/> In 1988, at ''Good Morning America'' she startled Diane Sawyer, live on air, after calling the new Chevrolet SSR, "bitchin", explaining to the clearly ruffled Sawyer that it was an acceptable California hot-rodding term.<ref name="GMA"/> She taught an ''Oprah Winfrey Show'' audience how to change a tire and jump start a car.<ref name="Jump">{{cite web |title = Jean Jennings of AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE Wins 2007 Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Journalism |publisher = jeanknowscars.com |author = |date = |url = http://www.jeanknowscars.com/contributors/jean-jennings,/|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140328094554/http://www.jeanknowscars.com/contributors/jean-jennings,/ |archive-date = March 28, 2014 }}</ref>
Jennings was periodically estranged from Davis,<ref name="autoweek01">{{cite web |last=Smith |first=Steven Cole |title=Long-time Auto Journalist David E. Davis Jr. Dies |url=http://www.autoweek.com/article/20110327/CARNEWS/110329884 |website=Autoweek |publisher=Crain Communications |date=March 27, 2011}}</ref> whom she described on his death in 2011 as "the most interesting, most difficult, cleverest, darkest, most erudite, dandiest, and most inspirational, charismatic and all-around damnedest human being I will ever meet. I have loved him. I have seriously not loved him."<ref name="autoweek01"/> For his part, Davis said on a televised show "I sometimes dream of a FedEx flight on its way to Memphis flying over Parma where she lives and a grand piano falling out of the airplane and whistling down through the air, this enormous object, and lands on her and makes the damnedest chord anybody has ever heard; this sound of music that has never been heard by the human ear. And the next morning all they can find . . . [are] some shards of wood and a grease spot and no other trace of Mrs. Jennings."<ref name="piano">{{cite web |title = Death of an iconoclastic journalist |publisher = Motorworld |author = Alex Taylor III |date = May 13, 2011 |url = https://money.cnn.com/2011/03/29/autos/david_e_davis_jr_obituary.fortune/index.htm|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110402204507/http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/29/autos/david_e_davis_jr_obituary.fortune/index.htm|url-status = dead|archive-date = April 2, 2011}}</ref>
Jennings was profiled by Susan Orlean for ''The New Yorker'', appeared on ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'', and was a regular on-air contributor, including on Fox Business Network; CNBC's ''Closing Bell'', ''Squawk Box'', ''Behind the Wheel'', and ''Power Lunch''; MSNBC; CBS's ''This Morning'' and ''Evening News''; and CNN's ''American Morning'' and ''Headline News''.
In 2014, she was a judge for the ten-episode, Chevrolet-sponsored reality show ''Motor City Masters'', which highlighted car-based design challenges.<ref name="reality">{{cite web |title = What I'm Driving |publisher = jeanknowscars.com |author = Jean Jennings |date = March 6, 2014 |url = http://www.jeanknowscars.com/life-with-jean/the-road-trips/what-im-driving/|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140311073018/http://www.jeanknowscars.com/life-with-jean/the-road-trips/what-im-driving/ |archive-date = March 11, 2014 }}</ref>
In 2012, while still with ''Automobile'', Jennings founded a self-branded website and blog, ''JeanKnowsCars'', with the backing of ''Automobile''{{'}}s owner, Source Interlink, online and in 18 newspapers nationally.<ref name="knowscars">{{cite web |title = Jean Knows Cars Launches |publisher = Autowriters.com |author = |date = October 28, 2012 |url = https://autowriters.com/jean-knows-cars-launches-newspress-crosses-the-atlantic-the-fast-car-lane-partners-with-jiayou-network/}}</ref> Source Interlink reshuffled its holdings in 2014, letting go of Jennings as Editor in Chief at ''Automobile'' and firing 90% of its staff.<ref name="fired">{{cite web |title = Automobile closes Ann Arbor office, releases most of staff |publisher = PRWEB.com |author = Brandon Turkus |date = May 29, 2014 |url = https://www.autoblog.com/2014/05/29/automobile-magazine-closes-ann-arbor-office-releases-staff/}}</ref> Her website and blog remained active until about 2018.
==Awards and recognition== Jennings received the 2016 New England Motor Press Association's Lifetime Achievement Award;<ref name="award">{{cite web |title = New England Motor Press Association 2016 Honors & Awards |publisher = New England Motor Press Association |author = Lisa Brock |date = June 1, 2016 |url = https://nempa.org/awards/2016/new-england-motor-press-association-2016-honors-awards/}}</ref> the Motor Press Guild 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award<ref name="mpg">{{cite web |title = Legendary Auto Editor Jean Jennings is named 2016 Motor Press Guild Lifetime Achievement Award recipient |publisher = Motor Press Guild |author = |date = November 15, 2016 |url = https://www.motorpressguild.org/legendary-auto-editor-jean-jennings-named-2016-mpg-lifetime-achievement-award-recipient/}}</ref> and the 2007 International Motor Press Association annual Ken Purdy award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism for her June 2006 ''Automobile'' cover story, "Veyron in the USA."<ref name="purdy">{{cite web |title = Jean Jennings of AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE Wins 2007 Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Journalism |publisher = PRWEB.com |author = |date = |url = https://www.prweb.com/releases/automobile/magazine/prweb516475.htm|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210419194257/https://www.prweb.com/releases/automobile/magazine/prweb516475.htm|url-status = dead|archive-date = April 19, 2021}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20140327221015/http://www.jeanknowscars.com/ JeanKnowsCars.com] * {{IMDb name|5355540}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jennings, Jean}} Category:1954 births Category:2024 deaths Category:Motoring journalists Category:American women magazine editors Category:American columnists Category:American magazine editors Category:American women essayists Category:21st-century American journalists Category:20th-century American journalists Category:American magazine founders Category:American magazine publishers (people) Category:People in the automotive industry Category:American bloggers Category:American essayists Category:American women bloggers Category:Writers from Michigan Category:Television personalities from Michigan Category:American reporters and correspondents Category:20th-century American women Category:21st-century American women Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in Michigan Category:Deaths from dementia in Michigan