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Bertha Benz -

Bertha Benz was born Cäcilie Bertha Ringer on May 3, 1849 in Pforzheim, Germany. She married engineer Karl Benz and a few years later became his business partner.

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Bertha Benz -

Karl Benz invented the first practical automobile, but it was his wife, Bertha, who put it to the test.

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Bertha Benz -

Bertha Benz was the first person in history to drive a car over a long distance. This was a genius publicity stunt, and journalists in every town she stopped by covered the feat.

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Bertha Benz -

She encountered a few problems while testing the vehicle for 105 km (65 mi). One of them was the brake shoes wearing. In response, she got a cobbler to cover them with a leather lining. Bertha Benz invented brake pads!

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Dorothée Pullinger -

Pullinger's love for cars ran in the family as her father was an engineer at the car manufacturer Arrol-Johnston in Scotland. She became the director and manager of Galloway Motors Ltd. who produced a car designed for women called the Galloway.  They employed a large female work force while Dorothée Pullinger was in charge. 

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Dorothée Pullinger -

Dorothée Pullinger was a founding member of the Women's Engineering Society in 1919. In 1921, Pullinger was accepted as the first female member of the Institution of Automobile Engineers. In 2012, she was inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.

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Mary Anderson -

Mary Anderson actually didn’t drive. But she did make a huge contribution to the auto industry: she invented the windshield wiper.

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Mary Anderson -

Anderson came up with the idea after seeing a driver opening the window to be able to see during a storm in 1902.

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Mary Anderson -

Unfortunately no company invested in her invention, the patent expired, and she never got any money from it.

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Charlotte Bridgwood -

But Mary Anderson wasn't alone in her business misfortune. In 1907, Charlotte Bridgwood invented an electrically-powered version of the windshield wiper. Like Anderson, she patented it, but it expired before automakers started using them.

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Florence Lawrence -

Not only was Lawrence known as the "first movie star," she also invented the "auto signaling arm," which was essentially the predecessor of the turn signal and the break signal!

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Alice Ramsey -

It all started when Ramsey's husband bought her a 1908 Maxwell, which she took on an endurance race.

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Alice Ramsey -

Maxwell’s sales manager saw this as an opportunity to market the car to women, so he sponsored Alice Ramsey on a 5,800 km (3,604 mi) trip around the US.

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Alice Ramsey -

Ramsey, together with her two sisters-in-law and a friend, drove from New York City to San Francisco, making her the first woman to drive across the US from coast to coast.

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Alice Ramsey -

Alice Ramsey became president of the first Women’s Motoring Club in the US, and in 2000 she became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

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Helene Rother -

Rother became famous for being the first female auto designer in Detroit. Working as an interior designer for General Motors, she made a name for herself in the industry. She left GM in 1947 to open her own studio, and worked with several big clients, including Nash Motors, an independent automaker.

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Helene Rother -

Not only was she an acclaimed auto interior designer, she was also getting paid more than most men at the time, with a monthly salary of US$600 in 1941!

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Helene Rother -

Rother represented Nash and GM at the 1951 Paris Auto Show, and was the first woman to speak at a conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers.

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Damsels of Design -

In 1955, GM design chief Harley Earl put together a team of female designers called the "Damsels of Design." They were the automotive industry’s first all-female design team.

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Damsels of Design -

Earl's successor eventually dissolved the team, but some of the women stayed with GM. Suzanne Vanderbilt was one of these women—she worked on Cadillac and Chevrolet designs, and created an inflatable seat back that was patented as lumbar support.

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Mimi Vandermolen -

Vandermolen started working at Ford’s design studio in 1970, where she worked on the exterior and interior design of the 1974 Mustang II and the redesign of the 1975 Granada.

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Mimi Vandermolen -

Mimi Vandermolen then led the interior design team of the 1986 Ford Taurus, where she improved seats and developed new ergonomic controls.

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Mimi Vandermolen -

Mimi Vandermolen was also responsible for the design of the 1993 Ford Probe.

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Michelle Chistensen -

Chistensen made history by becoming the first woman to ever lead a supercar design team. She was responsible for designing the second generation Honda Acura NSX.

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Mary Barra -

Barra started working at General Motors in the 1980s, and in 2014 became CEO of the company.

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Mary Barra -

With this big announcement, Mary Barra became the first female CEO of a major global automaker.

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Mary Barra -

Other accolades include: first in Fortune's Most Powerful Women list in 2015, second in Forbes Most Powerful Women list of 2018, and the cover of Time's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2014.

See also: Women leaders around the world

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