During the early 1960s, while Swedish talents like Anita Ekberg, Mai Zetterling, and singer Monica Zetterlund were capturing global attention, Ewy Rosqvist emerged as a striking figure in motor sport, bringing her own brand of blonde glamour. Rosqvist, who passed away at 94, clinched the European women’s rally championship three consecutive years from 1959 to 1961.
In 1962, alongside her co-driver Ursula Wirth, she stunned skeptics by finishing first among 257 competitors in the Gran Premio Argentina for touring cars, a demanding six-day race covering 2,891 miles of rugged, uncovered roads in their Mercedes saloon at an average speed just shy of 80mph, concluding with a time that was three hours ahead of the nearest competitor.
Only 43 of the participants completed the race. The Argentinian audiences were left amazed at the sight of women triumphing in what was largely a male-dominated, and often macho, sport in Latin America. Among those who did not finish were three other factory-entered Mercedes vehicles, all manned by male drivers, including Hermann Kühne, who tragically lost his life trying to evade a herd of animals (reports vary between goats and wild horses).
Rosqvist later credited local racing legend Juan Manuel Fangio, a five-time Formula One world champion and Mercedes ambassador in Argentina, for his advice on handling encounters with herds of animals while driving, urging her not to veer away.
Both Rosqvist and Wirth honed their driving skills as veterinary assistants, a role requiring them to travel long distances in vehicles loaded with time-sensitive bull semen. Once they transitioned to international rallying, they were eager to pose for press photographers aware that such visuals would gain extensive media coverage.
The sole daughter among five children, Rosqvist was born Ewy Jönsson in a farming family in Stora Herrestad near Ystad in southern Sweden. She attended agricultural school before pursuing veterinary studies. Learning to drive on the farm, she received a Mercedes 170 from her father when she began working as a vet’s assistant, and she took pride in documenting the time it took her to travel between farms, always striving to outperform her colleagues.
Her marriage in 1954 to Yngve Rosqvist, an amateur rally driver, introduced her to the world of motor sport. They participated in races together, and Ewy made her solo debut in Sweden’s Midnight Sun Rally in 1956. She quickly became a central figure, winning the European women’s title in 1959. The next year, she left her veterinary position to join the Volvo works team, successfully defending her European title in both 1960 and 1961.
Rosqvist’s primary female competitor during her peak in international rallying was Pat Moss, who claimed the women’s title in 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, and 1965. Through a mutual acquaintance, Moss—sister to British grand prix legend Stirling Moss—met her husband Erik Carlsson, then the Swedish world rally champion.
In 1962, Mercedes-Benz bought out Rosqvist’s contract with Volvo and brought Wirth on as her co-driver. That year, they secured the women’s cup in the Rally of the Midnight Sun and the Rally of 1,000 Lakes in Finland, ultimately achieving victory in Argentina, where Rosqvist set the fastest time for every stage. The following year, they returned to finish third in the Gran Premio, trailing just behind two other Mercedes vehicles. They also won the Coupe des Dames during that year’s Monte Carlo Rally.
In 1964, alongside a new co-driver Eva-Maria Falk—a German journalist—she clinched her class while placing fifth overall in the Monte Carlo Rally, fifth in the Acropolis Rally, and achieved third place in the Spa-Sofia-Liège event. Her competitive career concluded with another third-place finish in Argentina, marked by only one significant accident where Rosqvist and Wirth struck a road barrier but managed to duck in time to avoid serious injury as their windscreen was shattered.
Following her divorce from Yngve, Rosqvist married Baron Alexander von Korff, the director of motor sport at Mercedes, in a ceremony held at a castle in Stuttgart in 1964. Baron von Korff passed away in 1977 after a long illness. Several years later, Rosqvist relocated back to Stockholm where she lived with Karl-Gustav Svedberg, a Mercedes dealer, until his passing in 2009.
Like many of Mercedes’ celebrated racing and rally drivers, Rosqvist maintained strong ties with the brand throughout her life. While leading tours of their Stuttgart museum, she showcased the 220SE saloon they used to achieve victory in Argentina, alongside cars raced to success by Fangio and Moss.
Reflecting on her achievements in that challenging 1962 race and the initial doubts surrounding her capabilities, she remarked: “They said I could never finish. So I finished first.”
