Jean Jennings has been writing about cars and the car business for more than thirty years. She learned about cars at the kitchen table from her father Robert, the late editor of Automotive News. At the age of eighteen, she bought a used car, painted it yellow, installed a toplight and a meter, and joined the Yellow Cab Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as an owner/operator. Five years later, Jennings went to Chrysler’s test track where she worked as a test driver, welder, and mechanic in the impact lab. In 1980, she was hired as a writer at Car and Driver magazine when she was laid off her Chrysler job, and in 1985 she left to establish Automobile Magazine with David E. Davis, Jr., as its first executive editor. She became Editor-in-Chief in 2000 and added the title of President of Automobile Magazine in 2006.
Jennings has won awards for her feature writing, for her car reviews, and for her monthly Automobile Magazine column “Vile Gossip.” She was the recipient of the 2007 Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism. Jennings has the unique experience, sensibility, and personality to connect with women and to give them voice in the male-dominated automotive space. She was the subject of a Susan Orlean profile in the New Yorker, has appeared on numerous television news shows, has been on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and was Good Morning America’s automotive correspondent from 1994 to 2000.
She is currently a regular on-air contributor to Fox Business Network; CNBC’s Closing Bell, Squawk Box, Behind the Wheel, and Power Lunch; MSNBC; CBS This Morning and Evening News; and CNN’s American Morning and Headline News.
Jennings lives in the Michigan countryside with her husband, Tim, and the entire food chain.