Top 10 Women in History from the Automotive Industry

To recognize the battles and triumphs of a portion of these ladies, we made a historic timeline of events with a portion of the top supervisor women and their significant commitments to the car business. From extraordinary mathematicians to engineers and bold racecar drivers, their lives and stories are nothing short of inspiring.

Look at the below timeline to get familiar with these ladies' phenomenal commitments to the car business and enabling takeaways from their accounts.

1888 - Bertha Benz - Pioneered the luxury car company Mercedes Benz. She was the first person to drive a car one a long distance ILLEGALLY!. This action, however, led to finding improvements such as brake pads and gear shifts.

1893 - Margaret A. Wilcox - Amongst the first female mechanical engineers of her time and the inventor of the first car heater. This invention then went on to become the basis for modern-day heating systems.

1903 - Mary Anderson - Developed the first functional windshield wiper. Unfortunately was unable to sell the idea as is was deemed unsafe!

1909 - Alice Huyler Ramsey - Founder of the Women’s Motoring Club, the first women to drive coast to coast and the first women to be inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

1914 - Florence Lawrence - Inventor of the turn and brake stop signals. Florence was known as the “the first movie star” however never obtained credit for her inventions.

1942 - Hedy Lamarr - Inventor of a radio singling device which was intended for WW2. Her patent then went on to become the stepping stone for cellular technology which led to the development of things like Bluetooth, WiFi etc. Hedy was also given the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award.

1956 - Dr. Gladys West - Was the second black female mathematician to be hired at the U.S. Naval Weapons Lab. Her programming of IBM became the basis for the GPS, she was also inducted into the U.S. Air Force Hall of Fame.

2005 - Michelle Christensen - Hired by Honda / Acura as their first female exterior designer on the team and was also the first women to lead a design team for an exotic, limited production car.

2008 - Danica Sue Patrick - Known as the most successful woman in the race car driving. She was the only woman to win an Indy race. 2008 Indy Japan 300. She was also the first female NASCAR driver to win a Cup Series pole at the Daytona 500.

2014 - Mary T. Barra - First female CEO of General Motors. Under her leadership, GM has been ranked No. 1 in gender equality.
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