Influential Women of Automotive History

Celebrate Women’s History Month by looking back at the women who shaped the car world into what it is today. Here are the women of automotive history!
Bertha Benz with her children on the first long distance trip - mercedes-benz.com
Bertha Benz with her children on the first long distance trip - mercedes-benz.com

The Mother of Automobiles 

Karl Benz is considered the inventor of the first example of the automobile. However, his three-wheeled horseless carriage was almost a flop had it not been proven by his other half. Bertha Benz was both Karl’s business partner and wife. She not only pushed her husband to engineer his horseless carriage idea but helped improve upon the concept and marketed the effectiveness of the model.

Bertha, along with her children, took the first road trip by car from Mannheim to Pforzheim in an effort to showcase the capability of Benz’s Motor Car. Travelling by early combustion engine wasn’t easy in 1888, let alone a 106-kilometer journey. She used her technical know-how and tenacity to persevere over obstacles that came about. She had to push the car when it ran out of fuel and stop at pharmacies along the way to get a rudimentary fuel substitute and add water to the system.

Bertha Benz - mercedes-benz.com
Bertha Benz - mercedes-benz.com

She also acted as an early research and development specialist for the automobile. During her travel she had to get crafty by clearing the fuel line with a pin and added one of her garters to the line to act as insulation. She made note that the two gears of the vehicle were not enough to take on steep hills, leading to Karl Benz adding a third gear to correct this issue. Bertha also installed leather on the wooden brakes to act as the first instance of brake lining helping with braking power. She eventually arrived in Pforzheim and sent a telegram to Karl Benz alerting him to her successful journey.

Not only did Bertha Benz’s journey in the first automobile aid in its further development, but news of the long journey got around and acted as a marketing stunt to boost sales of the model. If it were not for her, the original automobile may have failed to gain traction and the auto industry would look wholly different than we know it today.

So, to celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, we’re acknowledging Bertha Benz as the “Mother of Automobiles” and taking a look at other female pioneers throughout automotive history. We’ve brought together some of iconic women in motorsports world, found automotive advancements developed by women, and looked back at women’s other automotive achievements.

Women of Motorsports 

There are so many great women who have taken the wheel in the world of motorsports. While it’s hard to hit every international racing series and every important female figure in racing, we feel these women are some of the most notable in all of motorsports. But please feel free to voice your support in the comments for other influential female drivers you feel deserve the recognition too!

Sara Christian 

Sara Christian - @NASCARDiversity on X
Sara Christian - @NASCARDiversity on X

The honor of being the first woman driver in NASCAR history goes to Sara Christian. Not only was she one of the first lady of the American motorsport, but she was there for the very first season in 1949. Her inaugural race was at Charlotte Speedway in her husband’s #71 Ford. She was swapped out of the driver’s seat part way through that race, but Christian fully completed the Daytona Beach Road Course later that season finishing 18th. Christian was accompanied by fellow lady racers Ethel Mobley and Louise Smith, which led to the Daytona event being the first ever to include three female drivers. Sara Christian’s other NASCAR accolades include being the first female driver to ever finish a race in the top ten and the only one with a top five Cup Series finish by a female driver to this day. Her 1949 season was also impressive as she raced in only six of the eight events but reached 13th overall in points, nevertheless.

Lella Lombardi 

Lella Lombardi - formula1.com
Lella Lombardi - formula1.com

Maria Grazia “Lella” Lombardi is an Italian woman who’s known for being one of only two women to ever qualify for Formula One and is the only woman to ever score points in Formula One history. In 1975, Lella drove under the March Engineering team for a full season after finding some success in the F500 Championship the year prior. She finished 21st in points with a sixth-place finish at the Spanish Grand Prix being a highlight. She’d leave Formula One, but continued racing in other contests like the 24 Hours of Le Mans – which she participated four times in and achieved a second-place class finish in a Lancia Stratos Turbo. Lella also made her way into NASCAR for the 1977 Firecracker 400 at Daytona Internatioanl Speedway. She was joined by Janet Guthrie and Christine Beckers for the last time to date that three women would compete in a NASCAR event.

Janet Guthrie 

Janet Guthrie - automotivehalloffame.org
Janet Guthrie - automotivehalloffame.org

Janet Guthrie was an aerospace engineer that had the need for speed. Guthrie was an accomplished race car driver and is known as the first woman to qualify and compete in both the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500. After racing at the World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, she was also known for being the first woman to race in a Cup Series race at a superspeedway. She has a recorded 33 races in NASCAR with a majority taking place behind the wheel of her Kelly Girl sponsored #68 Chevrolet Laguna stock car. She faced adversity due to her gender when trying to qualify for the 1976 Indianapolis 500 but was given a backup car by AJ Foyt to showcase that she could be competitive. This helped in getting her a team and sponsorships for subsequent years for IndyCar racing. She’s since been outspoken about how hard being a woman in motorsports can be and has been an advocate for women’s rights and equality.

Michèle Mouton 

Michèle Mouton - petersen.org
Michèle Mouton - petersen.org

Michèle Mouton was a French rally driver who found success behind the wheel of the Audi Quattro as a part of the Audi Sport factory team. Her World Rally Championship record includes four victories and five other podiums between 1981 and 1984. She’s also credited with winning the 1986 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb event in which she set a hill climb record in the process. She later became the first woman to win a major rallying championship in 1986 after racing with Peugeot for the German Rally Championship. She later co-founded the Race of Champions, an international event in which drivers from all major motorsports come together to race each other in identical cars. Mouton is also credited with being the first president of the newly created FIA Women in Motorsport Commision in 2009. This group is dedicated to helping encourage and develop women in the world of racing.

Jutta Kleinschmidt 

Jutta Kleinschmidt - jutta-kleinschmidt.de
Jutta Kleinschmidt - jutta-kleinschmidt.de

The Dakar Rally may not be very well known in the states, but the desert race is quite a beast to conquer. Jutta Kleinschmidt started out racing the event on the back of a BMW motorcycle in 1988 before getting her chance behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution in 1995. She participated in the Dakar 15 more times since that event, securing three podium finishes and even getting the win in 2001. She’s not only the first woman driver to win the Dakar, but the only German to date to win in the car category. She took a brief hiatus from major motorsports until being brought back into the fold for the 2021 and 2022 Extreme E full-electric off-road rallying season.

Danica Patrick 

Danica Patrick - danicapatrick.com
Danica Patrick - danicapatrick.com

Danica Patrick is one of the most popularized women of modern motorsports. While she’s since retired from full-time professional racing, she continues to be a female commentator and public figure in the world of racing. She showed promise early on in her racing career by achieving a third overall record in the 2004 Toyota Atlantic Championship that helped her get behind the wheel of an open-wheel race car in the IndyCar series. She achieved some success in the motorsport, achieving a fifth overall record for the 2009 season, placing third at the 2009 Indianapolis 500, and being the first ever woman to get a win in IndyCar history. She moved over to the NASCAR Nationwide Series before making her way to the Cup Series under Stewart-Haas Racing. While her NASCAR career is not as illustrious, it was where she gained significant popularity and notoriety in the world of motorsports as a female figure.

Lia Block 

Lia Block - liakblock on Instagram
Lia Block - liakblock on Instagram

Lia Block rose to fame under the guidance of her father, Ken Block. The Gymkhana and rally superstar taught his daughter everything he knew and helped her get into the business in 2021. Lia Block started out racing in the 2WD division of the American Rally Association and took part in the side-by-side division of the Nitrocross Championship. Ken Block unfortunately passed in early 2023, but that year was also the high point of Lia’s blossoming motorsports career. She became the youngest champion in the American Rally Association’s history after finding success in the Open 2WD class. She stepped in as a driver for the 2023 Extreme E season in which she remained competitive throughout. She was also announced as a driver for the 2024 F1 Academy season under the ART Grand Prix team. Lia Block is one of the latest modern examples of women in motorsports.

Automotive Advancements Created by Women 

Some advancements to the automobile are credited to women. These improvements to the modern car can still be seen in use today. Like Bertha Benz and her additions to the first Motor Car, these women have made valuable contributions to the automotive world that we remember them for.

Florence Lawrence 

Florence Lawrence - imdb.com
Florence Lawrence - imdb.com

While Florence Lawrence may be better remembered for being the “first movie star”, she is also credited with inventing the first examples of the turn and brake signals. Being a car enthusiast herself, Lawrence began engineering new ways to make the automobile driving experience better. What she came up with was the “auto signaling arm.” This was a device that was placed on the rear of a car that could be activated by the driver to alert other drivers of their intention to turn a specific direction. This invention also featured another indicator that was connected to the brakes to show that the vehicle was stopping. She didn’t patent these inventions, but her influence in creating the modern turn signal and brake lights is still seen today on every single vehicle.

Margaret A. Wilcox 

Margaret A. Wilcox - Kenosha School of Technology Enhanced Curriculum on Facebook
Margaret A. Wilcox - Kenosha School of Technology Enhanced Curriculum on Facebook

Margaret A. Wilcox was a mechanical engineer in the late 1800s. Being a women in her line of work was unfortunately not taken seriously back then. She had to fight for patents on her own inventions and prove herself amongst her peers. Her automotive innovation was the creation of the car heater that she patented in 1893. While her design didn’t feature temperature control, it was the first example of a mechanical mechanism that redirected residual heat from the engine bay into the vehicle cabin. Thanks to her, we get to enjoy a warm car during the winter.

Mary Anderson & Charlotte Bridgwood 

Windshield wipers
Windshield wipers

Mary Anderson was a woman of many talents, but her inventive side is what led to her 1903 patent that changed automotive history. We may take windshield wipers for granted, but they’re pretty handy when the rain or snow hits. She developed the first example of the windshield wiper after noticing a trolley car driver having issues seeing out the windows during a sleet storm. Her early example was a manual design that consisted of a handle on the inside of the cabin that controlled a rubber wiper that ran across the windshield.

In 1917, another woman by the name of Charlotte Bridgwood introduced her “electric storm windshield cleaner.” Although Bridgwood’s design utilized rollers instead of the traditional blade design to clear a windshield, this was the first example of an automatic windshield wiper system. Together, these two women helped create modern windshield wipers. Neither made money from their inventions, but we’re thankful for their efforts in making driving safer during inclement weather.

Stephanie Kwolek  

Stephanie Kwolek - invention.si.edu
Stephanie Kwolek - invention.si.edu

Stephanie Kwolek was a chemist known for inventing the substance Kevlar. While working at DuPont in the ‘50s and ‘60s, she discovered a synthetic fiber that was five times stronger than steel, lightweight, maintained its shape, and was fire resistant. This substance is now widely used in a variety of different ways, but it’s especially prevalent in automotive design. It’s used in engine belts, brake pads, clutch lining, engine gaskets, high-pressure hoses, various composite body items, and, most importantly, tires.

Before Kwolek’s Kevlar, tires kept their shape through added steel. This added both vehicle weight and added to the wheels rotational weight which can put unnecessary added stress on the engine. Adding Kevlar to the tire compound in place of steel not only reduced its weight to aid in fuel efficiency but it made the tires stronger, rides quieter, and helped with tire abrasion.

Notable Automotive Achievements by Women 

Women have made other large strides in the automotive world outside inventions and motorsports too. Take a look at these other notable achievements by women!

Dorothée Pullinger  

Dorothée Pullinger - Yvette Le Couvey
Dorothée Pullinger - Yvette Le Couvey

Pullinger was the director and manager of Galloway Motors Ltd after World War I. Not only was this factory devoted to producing a car made for women, but it was also made largely by women as the company was staffed almost entirely with women. Their car was the Galloway, a model that was designed with the female driver in mind. Due to the average woman being of smaller stature, the company raised the seats, lowered the dash, moved the hand-brake next to the driver rather than on the dash, and made it smaller with added cargo room. Dorothée Pullinger went on the act as the first female member of the Institution of Automobile Engineers and also enjoyed racing at local car trials. She even won the cup for the race events in 1924.

Alice Ramsey  

Alice Ramsey
Alice Ramsey

Alice Ramsey was the first woman to drive across the United States of America, from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California. Mind you, this 1909 journey predates the creation of the Interstate Highway System and she drove a Maxwell DA that had a top speed of about 40 mph. Only 152 miles of the 3,600-mile trek to California featured paved roads. She, along with her two older sisters and a female friend as passengers, navigated across the USA utilizing early road maps and by following telephone poles. They eventually arrived in San Francisco after two months of driving and various repairs.

“Damsels of Design” 

Six of GM's "Damsels of Design" - wnycstudios.org
Six of GM's "Damsels of Design" - wnycstudios.org

Early automotive design was heavily tailored towards men by men, but automotive designer Harley Earl aimed to fix that. He travelled to The Patt Institute to find potential candidates to join his women-led design movement and what he came back to General Motors with was the “Damsels of Design.” While the women weren’t very enthusiastic with the marketing name for them, this group acted as a pivotal point in women and car development.

They aided in the designs of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac models of the 1950s and even had a Feminine Auto Show dedicated to their efforts that featured their beautifully designed show cars. Some of the items these women introduced to the world of automotive design included makeup mirrors with lighting, eye catching and colorful interiors, retractable seat belts, storage consoles, and child-proofed doors. While the group of women designers collapsed at General Motors after Harley Earl left, the individual women themselves went on to continue their careers in the automotive space.

Mary Barra 

Mary Barra - automotivehalloffame.org
Mary Barra - automotivehalloffame.org

While many women prior had found high positions in the automotive industry, Mary Barra broke through and became the first female CEO in automotive industry history. She was named CEO of General Motors in 2014 after acting as the Executive Vice President of Global Product Development, Purchasing, and Supply Chain. She continues to push the company’s brands forward to be competitive while also pushing electrification further into the forefront of the automotive industry by introducing vehicles like the Chevrolet Blazer EV, Hummer EV, Cadillac LYRIQ, and many more electric models.

Here’s to You Ladies 

There’s no doubt that women have had a hand in helping mold automotive landscape as we know it today. We commend all these women’s efforts in motorsports and innovation while sometimes being faced with adversity from their male counterparts. Here’s to all women in the automotive world and the future of cars that you’ll help create. We can’t wait!

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Jesse McGraw

Jesse McGraw brings his life-long car obsession into his writing. A fun childhood that involved growing up around race tracks, working on a rusty ‘99 Dodge Dakota held together by zip ties, and collecting Hot Wheels developed into a strong appreciation for automotive history. If there is an old, obscure, or rare car, he wants to know about it. With a bachelor's degree in Web Development & Design from Dakota State University, Jesse can talk shop about car or computer specs, focusing on classic cars, imports, and car culture.

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