Donohue was born in Haddon Township, New Jersey, and grew up in Summit. He graduated from the Pingry School in Hillside and studied at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, earning a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1959. At age 22, while a senior at Brown, he began racing his 1957 Corvette and won the first event he entered — a hillclimb in Belknap County, New Hampshire.
In 1961, Donohue won the SCCA national championship in an Elva Courier. Experienced driver Walt Hansgen, who worked for Inskip Motors, recognised Donohue's ability and provided him with an MGB for the 1964 Bridgehampton 500-mile SCCA endurance event, which Donohue won. Hansgen arranged for Donohue to co-drive with him at the 1965 12 Hours of Sebring, finishing eleventh. That year Donohue also won two SCCA divisional championships: in B Class in a GT350 and in Formula C in a Lotus 20B.
In March 1964, Donohue was hired by Jack Griffith as design engineer for Griffith Motors. He assisted in the design of the Series 400 Griffith and the Bob Cumberford-designed Series 600 Griffith (produced by Intermeccanica in Turin). The Griffith company went defunct in November 1966; by then Donohue had already been lured away by Roger Penske.
In 1966, through his friendship with Hansgen, Donohue was signed by Ford Motor Company to drive a GT-40 Mk II at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, campaigned by Holman & Moody. Hansgen died during testing; Donohue partnered with Australian Paul Hawkins and retired after twelve laps with differential failure. Earlier that year, co-driving with Hansgen, Donohue finished third at the 24 Hours of Daytona and second at the 12 Hours of Sebring.
At Hansgen's funeral, Roger Penske approached Donohue about driving for him. In his first race for Penske at Watkins Glen in June 1966, Donohue qualified well but crashed, destroying the car.
Donohue returned to Le Mans with Ford in 1967, co-driving the No. 4 yellow car with Bruce McLaren for Shelby American Racing. Despite disagreements on car setup, they finished fourth.
In 1967, Penske offered Donohue the wheel of a Lola T70 MkIII Chevrolet for the United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC). Donohue won six of seven races — at Las Vegas, Riverside, Bridgehampton, Watkins Glen, Pacific Raceways, and Mid-Ohio. In 1968, they returned with a McLaren M6A Chevrolet and Donohue again dominated despite three mechanical DNFs.
Donohue began his Trans-Am campaign in 1967, winning three of twelve races in a Roger Penske-owned Chevrolet Camaro. In 1968 he won ten of thirteen races, a Trans-Am record that stood until Tommy Kendall won eleven of thirteen in the 1997 season. Penske and Donohue experimented with acid-dipping the Camaro's body to reduce weight, placing ballast strategically for balance. At the 1967 season finale, a post-race inspection found the car 250 pounds below the 2,800-pound minimum; Penske's warning about Chevrolet withdrawing support led the stewards to let the result stand, but pre-race weighing was mandated from 1968. They continued the practice in 1968 at Sebring, running one legal-weight car as No. 15 and No. 16 in technical inspection, then putting both in the race. They won their class and finished third overall.
In 1970, driving a Javelin for Penske, Donohue won three races, with AMC finishing second in the Manufacturers' Championship. In 1971 he won seven of ten eligible races, securing AMC's first-ever Manufacturers' Championship; in the final race, Javelins finished first, second, and third, with George Follmer the only other Javelin winner besides Donohue.
Donohue and Penske entered the Indianapolis 500 for the first time in 1969; Donohue finished seventh and won Rookie of the Year. He finished second in 1970 and twenty-fifth in 1971. In 1972, driving for Penske in a McLaren-Offy, Donohue won the race at a record speed of over 162 mph (261 km/h), a record that stood for twelve years. It was Penske's first Indianapolis 500 victory.
Donohue raced in several NASCAR events from 1968 to 1971. In the 1972–1973 season, driving an AMC Matador for Penske Racing in the Winston Cup Series, he won the season-opening race at Riverside — Penske's first NASCAR win.
Between 1971 and 1972, Penske Racing was commissioned by Porsche to develop the 917-10 for Can-Am competition, with Donohue as primary test and development driver. During testing at Road Atlanta, Donohue recommended larger brake ducts; the new ducts interfered with bodywork closure pins, and at around 150 mph the rear bodywork flew off, lifting the car off the ground. Donohue suffered an internal derangement of his knee. George Follmer took over 917-10 testing in his absence.
Porsche, Penske, and Donohue then developed the 917-30, fitted with a reworked aerodynamic "Paris" body and a 5.4-litre turbocharged flat-12 engine adjustable from approximately 1,100 to 1,500 bhp via a cockpit boost knob. The 917-30 dominated the 1973 Can-Am championship, winning all but two races; it has been called the "Can-Am killer". After the Arab oil embargo in 1973, fuel limitations imposed by the SCCA and IMSA made the 917/30 uncompetitive and it was retired from Can-Am competition.
On 9 August 1975, Donohue drove the 917-30 to a world closed-course speed record at Talladega Superspeedway, averaging 221.120 mph around the 2.66-mile oval — a record that stood for eleven years until broken by Rick Mears at Michigan International Speedway.
Donohue raced in the inaugural IROC series in 1973–74, driving identical specially-prepared Porsche RSRs over four races. He won the first and third races at Riverside and the final race at Daytona. The only driver to beat him was former Penske Trans-Am teammate George Follmer. Among the drivers Donohue defeated were Denny Hulme, Richard Petty, A.J. Foyt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Bobby Allison, David Pearson, Peter Revson, Bobby Unser, and Gordon Johncock.
Donohue retired from racing after the 1973 Can-Am season, partly due to the death of friend Swede Savage in a crash at the 1973 Indianapolis 500. His retirement ended when Penske formed a Formula One team, Penske Cars Ltd, to contest the final two events of the 1974 Formula One World Championship and continue in 1975 with the new Penske PC1.
Donohue had previously debuted in Formula One at the 1971 Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, driving a Penske-sponsored McLaren entered by White Racing, and finishing third.
For 1974, Donohue finished twelfth at the Canadian Grand Prix and failed to finish at the United States Grand Prix. In 1975, he managed fifth at the Swedish Grand Prix and fifth at the British Grand Prix, but the PC1 proved problematic. Midway through the season, Penske abandoned the PC1 for the March 751.
At the Austrian Grand Prix — held at the Österreichring — during a practice session, Donohue lost control of his March after a tyre failure, crashing into the catch fencing at Turn 1 (Vöest Hügel Kurve). A track marshal was killed by debris. Donohue did not appear significantly injured initially, but developed a worsening headache. After going to hospital in Graz the following day, he lapsed into a coma from a cerebral haemorrhage and died on August 19, 1975. He was buried at St. Teresa Cemetery in Summit, New Jersey. Donohue's estate pursued litigation against Penske and Goodyear, settled in 1986; Goodyear paid the widow and children $9.6 million, with the claim alleging tyre failure caused the accident.
Donohue chronicled his career in the book The Unfair Advantage, co-written with Paul Van Valkenburgh, documenting his engineering approach to maximising performance — including exploiting the antilock braking system and turbocharged engines of various Porsches, and pioneering use of a skidpad as a development tool. The book was published shortly before his death and re-released in 2000 by Bentley Publishers.
His racing tradition is carried on by his son, David Donohue. Donohue received Drexel University's Engineering and Science Award in 1973. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1990, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1990, the Sports Car Club of America Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Trans-Am Series Hall of Fame in 2025.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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