| Ursula Wirth | |
| Birth Date: | April 25, 1934 |
| Birth Place: | Sundsvall |
| Death Date: | April 10, 2019 |
| Death Place: | Stockholm |
| Nationality: | Swedish |
| Occupation: | Automobile racer |
| Known For: | Won the Gran Premio Argentina with Ewy Rosqvist-von Korff in 1962 |
Ursula Wirth (April 25, 1934 – April 10, 2019) was a Swedish automobile rally racer. She and Ewy Rosqvist-von Korff won the Gran Premio Argentina in 1962, when they were also the first two-woman team to enter the race.
Wirth was born in Sundsvall, the daughter of Kurt Artur August Max Wirth and Ruth Ingrid Tora Sjöbohm.
Wirth was a rural veterinary assistant as a young woman, driving from farm to farm to treat animals. Finding that she enjoyed driving, she became interested in rally racing. She placed well in a rally at Västergötland in 1960, and soon teamed up with another woman rally driver and veterinary assistant, Ewy Rosqvist-von Korff.[1] [2] Together, they won several international road rally competitions in the early 1960s,[3] including the Gran Premio Argentina in 1962.[4]
At the 1962 Argentina rally, Wirth and Rosqvist were not only the winning team, but the first two women to enter the six-stage, 2871-mile race; they won all six stages and set a speed record with their win.[5] The two Swedish women were provided with bodyguards during their time in Argentina, for fear that they would be attacked by racing fans.[6] Reports of their win were accompanied by headlines like "Pretty Dolls Whip Men in Grand Prix",[7] and "Swedish Blondes Break Tradition in Grand Prix."[8]
Wirth and Rosqvist won the Coupe des Dames at the 1963 Monte Carlo rally.[9] Wirth worked with English driver Pat Moss in 1964,[10] and left racing in 1965, but taught driving for almost thirty years in Stockholm. In 1969, she appeared in the film Monte Carlo or Bust!.[11]
Wirth married television presenter Magnus Banck in 1965, and left rally racing. She was widowed when Banck died in 1981. She remarried in 1987, to Ingmar Fernström; he died in 2014. Ursula Wirth Fernström died in 2019, just before her 85th birthday, in Stockholm.[12]