OCTANE READERS are likely to be aware of Harry Schell, the first American to participate in the modern Grand Prix era (although he was born in France and lived most of his life there – see Octane 62) but few will know much, if anything, of his spirited mother, herself a Grand Prix driver, rally driver and race team owner in the 1930s.
Lucy O’Reilly was born in Brunoy, south of Paris, in 1896. Her father Francis Patrick O’Reilly was the son of Irish immigrants and made a fortune in
