Lucille Treganowan

TREGANOWAN, Lucille, American car mechanic extraordinaire. In 1960 she was a clerk in an auto-shop and got fed-up of saying “I don’t know” in reply to every technical query from a customer. Lucille had no interest or feeling for things mechanical. However, at the age of 30 plus, she commenced on a course of self-instruction about how vehicles and engines work. By 1973 she knew enough to go into business in this male trade. Being somewhat unique, she got lots of publicity in feature articles. Gradually she became a public figure, and taught a Powder-Puff Mechanics Course, later she had her own TV programme called Lucille’s Car-Care Clinic. Eventually Lucille’s speciality was automatic transmission repairs (which male mechanics avoid). Major newspapers featured her as a grandmother in a business suit, holding a spanner and leaning on an isolated gearbox.

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