McCluggage was born in El Dorado, Kansas, and spent her childhood in that state. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Mills College in Oakland, California, and began her journalism career at the San Francisco Chronicle. Her introduction to motorsport came in the early 1950s when, while covering a yacht race in San Francisco, she met Briggs Cunningham — the American constructor who built some of the first U.S.-built cars to race at Le Mans. The encounter sparked a lifelong passion for automobiles and competition.
She purchased her first sports car, an MG TC Midget, and began racing at small club events. In 1954 she relocated to New York to join the New York Herald Tribune as a sports journalist, where she also upgraded to a Jaguar XK140 and began racing more seriously.
McCluggage's trademark on track was a white helmet with pink dots, a distinctive visual signature that stood apart in a field dominated by men. She drove an eclectic mix of machinery over her career, including Porsches, Maseratis, and Ferraris, often partnering with fellow woman driver Pinkie Rollo.
Her most celebrated racing achievement came at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1961, where she won the grand touring category driving a Ferrari 250 GT. In 1964 she took a class win in the Monte Carlo Rally co-driving a Ford Falcon — a result that demonstrated versatility across both circuit racing and the demanding world of rally competition. She also competed in the Nürburgring 1000 km sports car race, one of endurance racing's most challenging events. McCluggage retired from racing in the late 1960s.
Parallel to her racing career, McCluggage was building a reputation as one of North America's sharpest automotive journalists. She was instrumental in launching Competition Press, the U.S. motorsport publication that later became AutoWeek, and remained a Senior Contributing Editor at AutoWeek until her death. Her weekly syndicated column, "Drive, She Said," appeared in approximately 90 newspapers across the United States and Canada.
She held both the Ken W. Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism and the Dean Batchelor Lifetime Achievement Award — two of the field's most prestigious recognitions. She wrote the text for American Racing: Road Racing in the 50s and 60s, accompanying photographer Tom Burnside's images, and authored the consumer advisory book Are You a 'Woman Driver?'. A lifetime achievement award from the International Automotive Media Association (IAMA) complemented her status as the only journalist ever inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, an honor she received in 2001.
Beyond motorsport, McCluggage was an accomplished skier and a published author on the subject. Her 1977 book The Centered Skier, published by Vermont Crossroads Press, blended sports psychology with Zen Buddhism philosophy. Featuring calligraphy by Al Huang, the book became foundational reading at ski schools including Sugarbush and appeared on the Professional Ski Instructors of America reading list. It experienced a resurgence in the mid-1990s with the advent of parabolic-shaped skis and carved-turn technique. She also authored By Brooks Too Broad for Leaping, a collection of her AutoWeek writing.
Her involvement in New York skiing extended to advocacy: in the mid-1950s, after a failed campaign to persuade New York State to develop Hunter Mountain as a ski area, she wrote a newspaper article that attracted a show-business investor group, which ultimately led to the mountain's development as a ski resort.
McCluggage was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2001, the Sebring Hall of Fame in 2012, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2022. She was married for one year to actor Michael Conrad. She died on May 6, 2015, aged 88.
Her career represents a rare dual legacy: as a competitive driver who earned the respect of male peers at circuits like Sebring and the Nürburgring in an era when women faced significant barriers to participation, and as a journalist who shaped American automotive culture for decades. Her ashes were interred at Jay Leno's Big Dog Garage in Burbank, California.