Tag: woman driver

Car CultureWomen & Car Advertising

Car Stereotypes & the Woman Driver

Posted on by Chris Lezotte

A popular and sometimes irreverent automotive website, Jalopnik not only produces timely car-related articles, but it often gets readers involved by asking for input on various autocentric topics. One of the subjects covered recently was that of car stereotypes. After the author presented a few of his own, the article was followed up by responses from Jalopnik readers. The collected list of stereotypes ranged from the odd and obscure to the well-worn.  Among those offered: Miatas are favored by gays; Subarus are driven by lesbians; pickups are the choice of rednecks; muscle cars are owned by macho men; Corvettes are the pick of old guys; Buicks are the car of choice of anyone over 80. What is interesting about these common and oft cited stereotypes is how intricately they are intertwined with gender. Gender, sometimes combined with sexual orientation or age, is not only the major identifier of the car owner, but is the primary means by which a vehicle is disparaged or valued.

This should not be surprising. Gender in car culture is often called upon to ascribe value and authenticity or to degrade and diminish a particular automobile. Due to the automobile’s longstanding association with masculinity, vehicles strongly associated with the youngish straight [white] male driver are invariably considered more powerful, better engineered, technologically superior, more responsive, and of greater workmanship and quality than those chosen by women or members of the LBGTQ community. Much of this assumption is based on the common perception that women just don’t know much about cars. As historian Judy Wajcman notes, “the absence of technical confidence or competence does indeed become part of feminine gender identity, as well as being a sexual stereotype” (155). The belief that women lack technical expertise often creates a reverse kind of logic in the minds of many male consumers. They believe that since women cannot appreciate the finer technical characteristics of a car, such as power, handling, and performance, the cars women purchase must be deficient. Women’s approval, in the minds of many men, leads to the devaluation of the car. 

This assumption of automotive inferiority carries over to cars popular in the gay community. In Masculinities, RW Connell remarks that the common perception of gay men is that they “lack masculinity”. As Connell writes, “from the point of view of hegemonic masculinity, gayness is easily assimilated to femininity” (78). Because gay men are often considered feminine among the straight-white-male population, the automobiles they drive are marked “girly’” as well. Consequently, vehicles marked as feminine or “gay” are thought of as less, affecting automotive sales and discouraging those buyers who wouldn’t be caught dead driving a “feminine” car.

What is interesting is that the cars subject to disparaging gender stereotypes were not, for the most part, originally produced or marketed to non-straight-white-male customers. As an example, vehicles now labeled “chick cars” are fast, sporty, nimble vehicles originally produced for the male automotive enthusiast. However, once women with car savvy and newly acquired spending power appropriated the Miata, VW New Beetle, and Mini Cooper as their own, many members of the male population became hesitant to drive them. Some men consider the “chick car” an affront to their masculinity and fear what driving such a car will say about them. As auto writer Ted Laturnus suggests, “for a lot of male drivers, the thought of driving a ‘chick car’ is the kiss of death when it comes to signing on the dotted line.”

The same could be said for the Subaru. As noted on its website, “Subaru has a long history of offering vehicles that are both highly capable and intelligently designed.” Originally known for its 4WD station wagon, the introduction of the Outback SUV – the first of its kind in the automotive industry – led to Subaru’s reputation as a manufacturer of safe and practical vehicles with exceptional performance features. While originally marketed as a vehicle for outdoorsy adventurous guys as well as active families, the Subaru is now considered a top choice for those who identify as lesbian. Yet unlike the chick car scenario, in which automakers beefed up the Beetles and Mini Coopers to make them more appealing to men, Subaru actively and aggressively pursued the lesbian market. As Alex Mayyasi reflects, ‘the marketers found that lesbian Subaru owners liked that the cars were good for outdoor trips, and that they were good for hauling stuff without being as large as a truck or SUV. (In a line some women may not like as much, marketers also said Subaru’s dependability was a good fit for lesbians since they didn’t have a man who could fix car problems.)” Yet unlike chick car manufacturers who feared an association with the woman driver would affect automotive sales, Subaru was confident enough in its product to aggressively pursue the lesbian market. Although the Subaru remains a popular choice among teachers and educators, health care professionals, IT professionals, and outdoorsy types of all genders and sexual orientations, its appeal to the non-straight-white-male population has led to its label as the “lesbian” car.

The age group of a certain automotive purchaser also contributes to a negative stereotype. Older drivers are considered overly cautious, accident prone, and focused on amenities that contribute to a vehicle’s safety, comfort, and economy rather than handling, power and performance. Consequently, car models favored by senior citizens are considered less desirable  than those marketed to young white men. Despite its current advertising campaign, Buick’s long association with mature drivers has stubbornly labeled it as the old person’s car.

In much of my research, I focus on women who drive vehicles that challenge gender stereotypes by choosing vehicles – muscle cars, chick cars, and pickup trucks – associated with men. These women often face disparaging remarks and unsubstantiated assumptions regarding their vehicle choices. Although the most prevalent car stereotypes are those associated with femininity, women who choose ‘masculine’ vehicles are not immune.

While car stereotypes are not universally focused on gender, the fact that so many rely on the notion that vehicles associated with individuals who are not young, white, straight, and male are worthy of ridicule is telling. While the intention of the Jalopnik article no doubt was to engage and entertain its readers, it also reminds us that at least in the car world, as Virginia Scharff writes, “what is seen as feminine, or belonging to women, seems trivial at best, dangerous at worst” (167).

Bellwood, Owen. “What Car Comes with the Weirdest Stereotypes?” Jalopnik.com 16 Nov 2021.

Connell, R.W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

“The History of Subaru.” grandsubaru.com

Laturnus, Ted. “So What’s Not to Like About a So-Called Chick Car?” Globe and Mail. 19 Jan. 2006.

Mayyasi, Alex. “How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Fall in Love with Subaru.” lesbianbusinesscommunity.com n.d.

Scharff, Virginia. Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1991.

Wajcman, Judy. Feminism Confronts Technology. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1996.

Car Culture

The Stick Shift & Masculinity

Posted on by Chris Lezotte

Since the combustion engine made its debut in the early twentieth century, the automobile has been associated with masculinity and the male driver. Throughout its colorful history, the automobile has been embodied with masculine qualities. Early autos were often described as dirty, smelly, and noisy; modern cars are often referred to as tough, fast, and powerful. In addition, within American car culture there is an underlying conviction that successful operation of a gasoline powered is dependent on particular masculine behaviors. Steady nerves, aggression, and rationality were claimed as masculine by the first generations of male drivers; today’s men behind the wheel have added automotive knowledge, technological savvy, and superior driving skill to the mix. 

One of the skills that has traditionally been associated with superior driving ability – and masculinity – is familiarity with a manual transmission. The gendering of transmission use was instituted shortly after the introduction of the automatic transmission in the 1950s. Although women had competently operated manual cars for decades, manufacturers viewed marketing automatics to women as a means to broaden their consumer base. As Jalopnik writer Raphael Orlove notes, ‘what Detroit figured out was that it could sell a lot more automatics if it touted how their ease of use made them more female friendly.’ All of a sudden, stick shifts were deemed too difficult to use for the woman behind the wheel. The notion that the manual transmission was unsuitable and unworkable for women promoted by auto advertisers and the automotive press solidified its position as a symbol of male driving expertise.

As noted in a recent Jalopnik article, the ‘real men use three pedals’ mentality remains alive and well. As the author notes, men often blame their wives for the purchase of an automatic transmission; to admit it is their choice would somehow compromise their masculinity. In my research into women who venture into automotive cultures traditionally dominated by men – i.e. muscle cars, motorsports, and chick cars – the ability to drive a stick was cited by many women as evidence of  exceptional driving skill. In the minds of many female auto aficionados, mastery of a manual transmission puts them on equal footing – no pun intended – with men. 

Despite the engrained association between manual transmissions and masculinity, less than 3% of cars sold today have stick shifts. While it is believed that over half the US driving population – men and women – know how to drive a manual, no one is buying them. Boomers certainly make up a good portion of the know-how-to-drive-a-stick group as they most likely learned to drive in a manual. But to this aging group, ease of driving has become more important than demonstrating machismo by shifting gears. So why does this association persist? Why does the infinitesimal population of manual car buyers dictate the gendered implications of transmission choice? Entrenched gender divisions and expectations – especially in a culture that has relied on them since its inception – are difficult to eradicate or dismiss. I suspect that the aging out of the boomer generation, accompanied by the influence of Millennials with less interest in cars and gender differentiation – will change how we think about cars. And the rise of electric vehicles will hopefully, in time, make such evaluations meaningless.

In the meantime, as long as this obstinate association persists, this female boomer will enjoy surprising the male contingent at car shows when driving up in her three-on-the-tree 49 Ford or four-on-the-floor 67 Shelby Mustang.

Car CultureWomen & Car Advertising

Women in Post War Car Culture

Posted on by Chris Lezotte

While in graduate school during the 2000s, I devised an independent study focused on my growing interest in the relationship between women and cars. What follows is one of the response papers in which I consider how the construction of women as consumers in post World War II automobile culture served to limit women’s possibilities rather than expand them.

“American Car Culture” was created through the serendipitous confluence of a number of historical and social events in the years following World War II. Prosperity, promise and peace contributed to a fascination and a desire for cars that went beyond practicality and usefulness. As the documentary Tails, Fins and Drive-Ins suggests, twenty years of hardship and conflict created a “national obsession with obtaining the elusive American Dream,” a dream often realized through car ownership. Americans sought a reward for years of self-sacrifice; the automobile not only symbolized an “unlimited supply of economic luster,” but represented a promising and prosperous future as well. Television also contributed to the development of car culture. Its invention coincided with the growing desire to own a car, and television promoted such desire through programming and advertising. The development of a national freeway system, to accommodate the growing number of automobiles, not only changed the landscape of the United States, but also created a demand for family destinations such as motels, drive-in movie theatres and in-car dining. As Mark Foster writes in A Nation on Wheels, the automobile “not only influenced where Americans lived, worked, commuted and ran daily errands, [but] the automobile helped shape many of their leisure activities” (65).

Perhaps more important, as Joseph Interrante in “The Road to Autopia” attests, is the role of the automobile as “simultaneously a cause and consequence of the rise in consumerism” (90). The automobile emerged, both literally and figuratively, as the vehicle of the American consumer society. As Interrante writes, “made possible by the automobility of the car, metropolitan consumerism made the automobile a transportation necessity” (91). A burgeoning economy, and the suburbs that grew alongside the expanding highways, created a desire for products and the ways and means to purchase them. And the role of consumer, considered vital to a healthy economy, was most often awarded to the woman who remained at home.

While few dispute the automobile’s influence in the growth of the American consumer culture, little mention is made of another important “event” that helped set consumerism into motion. And that is the return of women to the domestic sphere after World War II. During the Second World War, women entered the workforce to take over the jobs left by husbands, fathers and brothers enlisted in the armed services. Once victory was attained, women were “encouraged” to leave paid employment in order to create welcoming homes for soldiers returning from war. Just as working in industry was deemed “patriotic” during wartime, setting up housekeeping and establishing families was considered a duty to country. Women’s isolation in the newly developing suburbs made owning a car a necessity, especially in the newly prescribed role as consumer.

Interrante asserts, “[the automobile] especially liberated women from the home” (99). In The Automobile Age, James Flink concurs, as he writes, “automobility freed […] women from the narrow confines of the home and changed them from producers of food and clothing into consumers of nation-brand canned goods, prepared foods, and ready-made clothes” (163). However, the automobile did not lessen the number of women’s domestic responsibilities; rather, it converted them into consumer duties. The freedom referred to by Interrante and Flint is misleading. After World War II, women were expected to leave the “masculine” work force to reassume the proper, culturally approved gender role of wife and mother. Ascribing women with the role of “consumer,” while bolstering the economy, also served to reinforce the common belief that woman’s place is in the home, unless, of course, she is in the car purchasing products for that home. As Ruth Schwartz Cowan writes, ‘by mid-century, the automobile had become, to the American housewife of the middle classes […] the vehicle through which she did much of her most significant work, and the work locale where she could be most often found” (Flink 164).  So while the car culture that emerged after the Second World War opened up exciting new possibilities, experiences and meanings for men, it effectively closed them for women. The automobile as a symbol of rebellion, power, status, and sex appeal became part of masculine car culture. Representations of women in popular car culture, Foster tells us, are primarily “appendages or passive observers to be impressed by powerful machinery” (85). While women may have originally been “enamored,” in the words of Flink, with the possibilities of automobility, such dreams were rarely brought to fruition. In the golden age of American car culture, the automobile symbolized woman’s identity as consumer, and reinforced the culturally prescribed gender role as wife and mother.

Flink, James. The Automobile Age. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990.

Foster, Mark. Nation on Wheels: The Automobile Culture in American Since 1945. Belmont CA: Thomson, Wadsworth, 2003.

Interrante, Joseph. “The Road to Autopia: The Automobile and the Spatial Transformation of American Culture.” The Automobile and American Culture. David Lewis & Laurence Goldstein, eds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Tail Fins and Drive-Ins. 1996. Allumination Filmwork.

Volti, Rudi. Cars and Culture.: The Life Story of a Technology. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.

Car ChicksWomen & Motorsports

Women Drive The W Series

Posted on by Chris Lezotte

I was recently asked to submit a chapter on women and motorsports to include in an upcoming collection of essays on motorsports history. As the subject is quite broad, I chose to focus on women-only racing. What follows is an excerpt from the upcoming ‘From Powder Puff to W Series: the Evolution of Women’s Only Racing’ from Life in the Fast Lane: Essays on the History and Politics of Motor Racing. This particular extract addresses the W Series, the most recent, prominent, and perhaps most promising women-only racing series.

In the early 2000s, the women’s racing series emerged as an alternative all-female racing concept, created to address the lack of women in the higher echelons of motorsport by providing more openings for more women to develop the skills and experience necessary to move on to the next level. While earlier attempts at the women’s racing series met with varying degrees of success, the most recent and most promising format is the W Series, which just completed its second successful season.

2019 & 2021 Champion Jamie Chadwick

The W Series was introduced in October 2018 as “a unique ground-breaking free-to-enter single-seater motor racing series for women drivers only” (W Series). The all-female Formula 3 championship series was conceived to promote female drivers into Formula One. The W Series objective, notes organizer Catherine Bond Muir, is not only to provide top notch racing for spectators and viewers on a global scale, but also to “equip its drivers with the experience and expertise with which they may progress their careers.”

In its inaugural season, 18 drivers representing 13 countries – chosen from nearly 100 of the top female drivers across the globe – participated in six races at some of Europe’s premier Formula 1 racing venues. Prior to taking the wheel, the women were required to participate in rigorous training programs centered on driving techniques, simulator exposure, technical engineering approaches, fitness, and media, conducted by instructors with Formula 1 experience. Efforts were taken to address the inequalities that plague many of the world’s premier racing series. Drivers were not expected to attain sponsorships in order to participate nor to shoulder any of the financial responsibilities; rather, all expenses  were covered by the series organization. The women competed in identical series-owned Tatuus T-318 Formula 3 cars rotated after each race to remove any hardware advantage from the competition. Not only was the series free to enter for all its drivers, but awarded significant prize money [total of $1,500,000 US] all the way through to 18th place in the final standings.

The 2019 series was a modest success; it experienced an increase in viewer interest and ratings after each race. By the end of the first season, the W Series was being broadcast in over 50 countries reaching up to 350 million households. The first W Series champion – Britain’s Jamie Chadwick – took home a $500,000 prize and was subsequently named as a development driver for the Williams Formula 1 Team. At the end of the season it was announced that in 2020, the top eight drivers in the championship would collect points toward an FIA Super License, an important entryway into Formula 1.

Chadwick leading the pack

The COVID pandemic cancelled the 2020 W Series. However, it was announced that as part of a new partnership with Formula 1, the W Series would be on the support bill for eight Grands Prix in 2021. The partnership not only lends legitimacy to the all-female series, but further underscores the W Series’ role in the preparation and promotion of female racers into the upper tiers of motorsport.

The 2021 season came to a close in October, with Jamie Chadwick once again finishing at the top of a very impressive group of drivers. However, despite the growing success of the racing series, there remains a bit of controversy not over the W Series itself, but the role it plays – or not – in the development and promotion of female drivers. W Series entered the racing arena under a cloud of controversy with much to prove. Not everyone – the media, racing organizations, race promoters, and the women themselves – was convinced a woman-only series was a step forward for female racers. W Series opponents argued that since motorsports is one of the few competitions in which women can compete directly with men, female racers should take every opportunity to do so. As male accomplishment is the barometer by which success in any field is most often measured, choosing to compete against women may be considered a sign of weakness, cowardice, or ineptitude. Other objections focused on the prize money offered to female competitors, arguing that the considerable monetary awards could be better distributed. When the W Series was announced, veteran driver Pippa Mann asserted, “I strongly believe, in the firmest possible terms, that this money should be spent helping field those same racers in real cars, in real series, in non-segregated competition” (qtd in Hall). 

An early representation of the woman driver

The debate surrounding the W Series echoes that which has accompanied most configurations of female motorsport since Powder Puffs first entered the racing arena. For much of its existence, women’s racing has been constructed as a frivolous and inconsequential sideshow, a trivial endeavor, a catwalk of second-rate drivers in pink racing suits. Although women’s racing has come into its own in the twenty-first century, it cannot completely escape such long-standing and disparaging associations. It is not surprising, therefore, that many choose to dismiss all-female racing as way to distance themselves from these pervasive and sexist stereotypical representations. Secondly, throughout automotive history, women have been portrayed as inferior drivers. In the early auto age, writes automotive scholar Virginia Scharff, “critics of women drivers […] cited three presumed sources of women’s inferiority at the wheel: emotional instability, physical weakness, and intellectual deficiencies” (26). These assumed biological, gender-induced character deficits have carried over into motorsports, where women are considered less able to perform in a competitive field, or, as Pflugfelder writes, are thought of as “something less than a driver” (417). To be female in segregated racing such as the W Series, therefore, carries the stigma of inferior and ‘less than.’ To prove oneself as legitimate, some contend, it is imperative to compete against men. As Straus asserts, “I didn’t become a race car driver to be the ‘best woman out there’” (qtd in Gilboy).

W Series organizers and promotors have countered criticism by focusing on the increased possibilities such a series offers for female racers. W Series leaders argue this can be accomplished through the reduction of obstacles that hamper women throughout the tiered racing system, the elimination of individual financial responsibility, and the establishment of programs that encourage women’s motorsports involvement at a young age.

Throughout motorsports history, the lack of opportunities for women has greatly limited their participation. A series without men opens up significantly more racing possibilities for female racers. More women racing in high-profile, high-performance events will lead to the normalization of women’s motorsport participation. More women on the track will lead to increased media coverage and publicity, bringing the world of motorsports to new, younger, and female audiences. If women’s racing becomes normalized, young girls are more likely to develop an interest, and more parents may consider karting – the predominately male entryway into motorsports – for their racing-obsessed daughters. 

In a recent interview, Chadwick addresses the criticism often directed at women’s racing in general and the W Series in particular. Her repeated success in the W Series has led the media to position Chadwick as a model of women in motorsports, a weight she does not take lightly. As she explained, ‘What [the W Series] does is give massive visibility and exposure to women in motorsport, giving us the opportunity to be racing at such a high level. […] Without W Series, there’s a handful of drivers that wouldn’t have that opportunity. […] And to be completely honest, I think I would have struggled to see my career progress […] without W Series because I think the season’s racing helps for sure” (Southwell).

W Series organizer Catherine Bond Muir notes, “Women in motorsport are something of a rarity today, but with W Series as a catalyst, we hope to transform the diversity of the sport—and perhaps even encourage more girls into professions they had not previously considered. That will mean as much to us as helping develop a female Formula 1 world champion” (qtd in Gilboy). 

Gilboy, J. (2018a) ‘W Series: Everything to Know About the Women-Only Racing Championship’, The Drive. 13 Oct.

Hall, S. (2019) ‘3 reasons we should be paying attention to the W Series’, Autoweek, 3 Jul.

Pflugfelder, E. (2009) ‘Something less than a driver: toward an understanding of gendered bodies in motorsport’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 33(4) pp. 411-426.

Scharff, V. (1991). Taking the wheel: women and the coming of the motor age. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Southwell, H. (2021). ‘Jamie Chadwick Feels the Weight of Representing Women in Motorsport.’ The Drive, 23 Oct.

W Series (2020) ‘W Series: a game changer.’ 6, Feb.

Auto IndustryWomen & Car Advertising

Foreign Cars & the Woman Driver

Posted on by Chris Lezotte

While working on my master’s degree at Eastern Michigan University in the early 2000s, I devised an independent study focused on my growing interest in the relationship between women and cars. What follows is one of the response papers in which I consider the appeal of non-made-in-America vehicles to female motorists. While this paper focuses on a particular period of American auto history, what is interesting is that, since this paper was written, American automakers have ceased production on small cars and sedans, conceding their manufacture to Asian and European car companies.

As I conducted research on the “chick car” last year, I discovered that the automobiles most often included in this category are foreign models. The Mini Cooper, VW Beetle, Mazda Miata and Toyota RAV4 appeal to women because they are affordable, cozy, well-designed and most important, fun to drive. Therefore, as I read Flink’s recounting of the foreign car invasion in The Automobile Age, I couldn’t help but wonder if the success of the foreign car in this country is based in part on its appeal to a segment of the car-buying public traditionally ignored by the US automotive industry. I wonder, in fact, if women’s embrace of the small, quick, comfortable and affordable foreign car is somewhat responsible for its increasing popularity, as well as for the decline of domestic vehicle sales. While it is certainly an overstatement to imply the bleak state of the US auto industry is due to its inherent patriarchy and dismissal of women’s interests, there remains enough evidence to suggest that the failure to build a car that appeals to women, in the form of a smaller, quicker, more economical and more technologically advanced vehicle, is a contributor to the industry downslide. 

Automobile history tells us that US car manufacturers have traditionally designed separate models for European and Asian markets. As James Flink writes, “like most other European auto manufacturers, and in marked contrast to their American operations, Ford-Europe and GM-Europe both concentrated in the postwar decade in producing small, fuel-efficient cars” (295). The significant difference in cars built for foreign rather than domestic consumption suggests automakers responded to such variations as geography, fuel cost, road conditions and government restrictions rather than on cultural or social requirements and desires. Simply put, US automakers built small cars for foreign markets because the roads are narrow, not because the citizens want or need a smaller, more efficient automobile. 

Domestic automakers built big cars for the big, wide open US highways, without taking into consideration that driving conditions do not necessarily dictate what all drivers want. Industry leaders failed to notice that many of the qualities that appeal to foreign car buyers are also attractive to female drivers. US carmakers have historically refrained from developing small cars because, as Flint remarks, “large cars are far more profitable to build than small ones” (284). Such a sentiment ignores the fact that the majority of US automobiles produced before 1990 were simply too large and cumbersome for the average woman to drive comfortably. I know that when I learned to drive, I had to place a pillow behind my back in order to engage the clutch pedal. My sister, who is even shorter than I, sat on a cushion in order to see over the car’s hood. During the 1950s, Christy Borth of the Automobile Manufacturers Association is quoted saying, “it is foolish to use two tons of automobile to transport a 105 lb blond” (Flink 283). While the Japanese may have considered the smaller stature of its citizenry when designing automobiles, American car makers systematically ignored the more diminutive half of its population as it continued to blissfully crank out big, bulky automobiles. 

What Flink doesn’t mention, but which bears consideration, are the meanings associated with a “big” car. Not only is “big” associated with masculinity (today’s Ford F150 Trucks are a prime example), but also reflects America’s position of itself, the assumed “big boy” of the world. No doubt US car manufacturers think of themselves as big and male (and the Japanese, on the other hand, as small and feminine, and therefore of less value). Because the US car industry appears to have stock in the axiom “bigger is better,” American automobile manufacturers, as Flink writes, “remained convinced well into the 1960s of their invulnerability to foreign competitors in the world as well as the US market” (294). 

In A Nation on Wheels, Mark Foster suggests that such arrogance prevented automakers from considering other options in automobile production. Isolated from both criticism and the real world, auto executives convinced themselves that American car manufacturers “knew all there was to know about making and marketing cars” (143). Cloistered and isolated with individuals very much like themselves, corporate automakers “were seldom exposed to those who might disagree with them, particularly within the corporation” (143). Detroit auto men seemed incapable of viewing the car industry through eyes other than their own. As Flink tells us, while American automakers continued to build one standardized product in the largest possible volume, “Europeans fashioned domestically produced products for very different national market conditions” (299). The Europeans considered the divergent needs, driving styles and economic means of its potential buyers. US auto manufacturers, on the other hand, told consumers what to buy based on their own monolithic vision. European and Asian car manufacturers attempted to appeal to a wide variety of drivers, which of course, included women. Detroit automakers continued to profess they knew what the American public wanted without bothering to ask them.

Foreign cars are often less expensive than equivalent American-made products. Such lower priced automobiles, Flink reminds us, are often “a combination of lower wages, higher labor productivity and a unique system of material controls and plant maintenance” (335). As women have lower incomes than men, the lower purchase price and maintenance costs make foreign automobiles more attractive. And as many women remain responsible for maintaining the household budget, the value of an import often prompts its purchase. Most important, however, is that European and Asian manufacturers have traditionally addressed the needs of its customer base and have offered them options.

In Trouble in the Motor City, Joe Kerr writes, “over-confident from decades of total domination of American markets, the car-makers were still building their unwieldy and antiquated products when the oil crisis hit in 1973” (135). If we consider the masculinity embedded in American car culture, represented not only by the big, unwieldy vehicles but also those who produce them, the reluctance to build a smaller and more efficient car becomes understandable. The Japanese automobile, built by and for those smaller in stature, may be considered feminine and therefore undesirable. While such characteristics may explain why the foreign car has special appeal to women, it also suggests why the US automotive industry has been so reluctant to embrace the smaller automobile. As Bayla Singer, in Automobiles and Femininity writes, “in order to classify the qualities of the automobile driver as fundamentally masculine, thus perhaps allowing even the frailest male office worker to assert his masculinity, female use of the automobile must be classified as marginal or trivial” (39). Thus the disparagement of the foreign car, which includes the category of “chick car,” stems not only from its compact size, but also from the stature of the person who drives it.

Flink, James J. The Automotive Age. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 1988.

Foster, Mark. Nation on Wheels: The Automobile Culture in American Since 1945. Belmont, CA: Thomson, Wadsworth, 2003

Kerr, Joe. “Trouble in the Motor City.” Autopia: Cars and Culture. Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr, eds. Reaktion Books, 2002. 125-138.

Singer, Bayla. “Automobiles and Femininity.”Research in Philosophy and Technology. Vol. 13, Technology and Feminism. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1993. 31-42.

Announcements

Published in The Journal of Popular Culture

Posted on by Chris Lezotte

“What Would Miss Daisy Drive? The Road Trip Film, the Automobile, and the Woman Behind the Wheel” has been posted in pre-publication form on Wiley Article Share for inclusion in the next issue of The Journal of Popular Culture. In this article, I examine the relationship between a woman and a particular automobile in ten post-Thelma and Louise female road trip films. These films include Anywhere But Here, Tumbleweeds, Grandma, Tammy, Camilla, Cloudburst, Bonneville, Leaving Normal, Boys on the Side, and Manny and Lo [featuring a very young Scarlett Johansson]. The eclectic group of cars – 12 in all – include a 1955 Dodge Lancer, 1968 gold Mercedes, 1990 Ford Ranger pickup, 1974 VW Thing, 1966 Pontiac Bonneville, 1987 Toyota Corolla, 1999 Cadillac Deville, 1970 Pontiac Le Mans, 1970 Pontiac GTO, a 1970ish Checker Marathon, 1990 Chevrolet Caprice Wagon, and 1994 Mercury Villager minivan.

After making it across the Canadian border in a 1990 Ford Ranger, Dottie (Brenda Fricker) and Stella (Olympia Dukakis) stop to complete a marriage license in Cloudburst.

This was a fun project to work on – I watched many memorable as well as not-so-great female road films to make my selections – and I enjoyed the process of looking at the vehicles as important supporting players rather than mere props. Other than exhaustive literature on Thelma and Louise, the relationship between a woman and her car in film has not received much attention in scholarship. Hopefully this article will encourage folks to look at the cars and the women who drive them differently, not only in film but in all aspects of American life.

Manny (Scarlet Johansson) and Lo (Aleksa Palladino) call upon their late mother’s 1990 Chevrolet Caprice wagon to assemble a new family in Manny and Lo.
Auto Industry

The Male Automotive Historian and the Woman Driver

Posted on by Chris Lezotte
The Automotive Age by James J. Flink

While working on my master’s degree at Eastern Michigan University in the early 2000s, I devised an independent study focused on my growing interest in the relationship between women and cars. What follows is one of the response papers that addresses the problems of male automotive historians and the woman driver. Written in 1988, The Automotive Age was considered revolutionary in the field of social automotive history; however, its understanding and treatment of the female motorist left much to be desired. Three years later, Virginia Scharff made the first attempt to rectify Flint’s misconceptions in the groundbreaking Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age.

In “Gender Wars,” Clay McShane writes that in the early twentieth century, the motorcar “served as a battlefield in the wars over gender roles” (149). It is interesting, therefore, that auto historian James Flink, in his highly regarded text The Automobile Age, makes little reference to gender except in the most stereotypical of ways. Flink appears to be unaware of the effect of the automobile on gender relations; he fails to recognize how the actions of the auto industry during this time period often reconfigured and reinforced cultural gender roles that remain to this day. Flink’s failure to acknowledge this phenomenon is especially evident in his discussion of two events in early automotive history. The first is his discussion of the manufacture and marketing of the electric car; the second concerns the establishment of the Ford Motor Company’s Five Dollar Day. 

Of the electric car, Flink writes, “it was especially favored by women drivers, who were concerned foremost about comfort and cleanliness […]” (10). Such a sentiment suggests the electric car was developed in order to fulfill the needs and desires of the woman driver. However, what is more likely is that the electric car was not developed as a women’s car at all, but rather, was marketed to women in order to keep them from getting behind the wheel of the faster, more powerful gasoline powered motorcar.  Rather than create cars specifically for male or female consumers, automakers called upon prevailing gender ideology to create ‘natural’ markets for both the electric and gasoline-powered cars.

Early electric auto advertisement

The gasoline-powered automobile was gendered male from the very beginning. As McShane tells us, “The changes wrought by nineteenth-century industrialization profoundly threatened many traditional sources of male identity” (151). It became necessary, therefore, for new cites of masculinity to emerge. The automobile provided the male population with such a location. The characteristics of the automobile quickly became conflated with masculinity. Not only did the early gasoline-powered motorcar require physical strength and some mechanical ability to operate, but it also provided male drivers with opportunity to exert control over a machine during a time when industrial machines monitored their factory lives. The act of driving soon became defined by qualities  – aggression, control, and steady nerves – considered masculine. And it also served as a form of liberation, as men often got behind the wheel to escape occupational and familial responsibilities. As McShane suggests, “men defined the cultural implications of the new automotive technology in a way that served the needs of their gender identity” (149).

The electric car, on the other hand, symbolized that which was not masculine. It was slow, clean, easy to handle, and could not travel great distances. It did not offer the speed, power, driving range and freedom that characterized the gasoline-powered car. As the opposite of masculine, the electric car became associated with femininity, and was therefore considered especially appropriate for the female driver. While the electric car may not have been developed specifically for women drivers, the characteristics that became attached to it, labeled feminine by the automobile culture, deemed it an inappropriate vehicle for men. 

Fritchie Electric – ‘the ideal lady’s carriage’

While Flink suggests women desired the electric car, it is more likely that the car was marketed to women to prevent them from driving gasoline-powered automobiles and infringing on masculine territory. As Virginia Scharff writes, “Women were presumed to be too weak, timid and fastidious to want to drive noisy, smelly gasoline-powered cars” (37). Flink’s suggestion that women eagerly accepted the electric car and the gender roles that accompanied it is erroneous; the majority of women drivers were aware of the electric car’s limitations and often desired a vehicle that would go faster and farther. However, the gender ideology associated with electric and gasoline automobiles was promoted and encouraged, and soon became ingrained in the culture. The gendering of automobiles not only reinforced cultural notions of masculinity and femininity, but had a profound influence on the development and marketing of automobiles as well. As Scharff suggests, the electric starter, which made the gasoline-powered car almost as easy to drive as the electric model, would most likely have been available sooner had the auto industry been more willing to open up automobility to the female population. 

Flink’s second lack of gender consciousness is also evident in his discussion of the family wage and the Five Dollar Day. Flink describes the Five Dollar Day as Ford’s boldly conceived plan “for sharing profits with his workers in advance of their being earned” (121). The Five Dollar Day doubled the going rate of pay while shortening the workday by two hours. Ford’s policy was based on the notion that a worker should earn enough to provide for his dependant wife and children. The Five Dollar Day served to establish and reinforce his conviction that the husband should be the family breadwinner, and that women’s place was in the home. Thus the Five Dollar Day not only served as a form of social control over workers and the work process, but also firmly established appropriate gender roles in both the workplace and home. As Martha May writes in “The Historical Problem of the Family Wage,” “the underlying premises of the family wage made a dependent family essential to a preferred standard and to the notion of ‘normal manhood'” (402). The exclusion of benefits from those who did not fit Ford’s concept of the “family,” i.e. married women with working husbands, served to reinforce, economically and ideologically, proper roles for women and men. The family wage ideology instituted by Ford, and the gender roles that accompany it, has survived as an important element in our culture and our economy. In The Automobile Age, Flink describes the Five Dollar Day as an example of Ford’s role as an “exemplary employer regarding monetary remuneration” (120). What Flink fails to notice, however, is that Ford’s Five Dollar Day has had a lasting impact on how men’s and women’s work is perceived.

While The Automobile Age offers a wealth of information on the automobile and car culture, Flink fails to question or analyze the role the automobile has played in establishing and reinforcing cultural gender roles.

Flink, James J. (1988). The Automobile Age. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

May, Martha. “The Historical Problem of the Family Wage: The Ford Motor Company and the Five Dollar Day.” Feminist Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, 1982, pp. 399–424.

McShane, Clay. “Gender Wars” in Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Scharff, Virginia. Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.

Women & Car Writing

Women & Cars in a COVID Year

Posted on by Chris Lezotte

Over the past 10 years, beginning soon after I entered graduate school, I have spent most summers in the field talking to women about their cars. Whether it was classic Thunderbirds, sporty chick cars, rumbling muscle cars, or utilitarian pickup trucks, summer – with its preponderance of car shows and automotive events – provided a multitude of research opportunities. However, the COVID summer of 2020 put a sudden stop to such activities. And while car shows are slowly picking up in 2021, there are family issues which will cause me to stay close to home this summer. These turns of events will keep me from embarking on my anticipated project – women and Jeeps – for another year. 

The lack of ethnographic opportunities, however, led me to consider other types of women-and-car research projects. A few years ago I had presented a paper on women and cars in film at the Popular Culture Association [PCA] conference. As I had already conducted some of the initial research, the pandemic stay-at-home orders provided an open stretch of time for me to pursue the project. Prior to COVID, I had been asked to contribute a chapter on women and motorsports for an upcoming book. I had attended a Motorsports Conference in Watkins Glen in November 2019 and conducted a little research at the IMRRC [International Motor Racing Research Center] while there; this visit gave me both the material and the impetus to tackle the chapter. And after helping an individual with some advertising questions posted to the Society of Automotive Historians, I was approached by the Automotive History Review – the official journal of the SAH – to write an article about my experiences working at a Detroit automotive advertising agency during the 1980s. Suddenly, after wondering how I was going to spend months of lockdown, I had plenty of research projects to keep me motivated and busy. 

Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, and a classic 1955 Dodge Lancer in Grandma

In ‘What Would Miss Daisy Drive? The Road Trip Film, the Automobile, and the Woman Behind the Wheel’, I look at 10 post Thelma and Louise films to examine the relationship between a female protagonist and her automobile. As I noted in the PCA presentation: 

Since women first expressed interest in automobility, auto manufacturers and marketers have directed the female motorist toward the practical ‘family’ vehicle. While men are encouraged to purchase automobiles that reflect power, performance, and toughness, women are expected to drive a safe, reliable, and functional automobile that reinforces the gender appropriate role of wife and mother. Throughout the nearly 100 years since the first automobile rolled off Henry Ford’s assembly line, advertisers and automakers have consistently and determinedly placed the woman driver behind the wheel of a station wagon, minivan, small SUV, or crossover.

Although modern day advertising continues to reflect this longstanding trend, there is one location that occasionally disrupts this pervasive representation. In the female road trip film, the protagonist is likely to drive a vehicle rarely associated with the woman driver. While traditionally presented as a passenger, sidekick, or not at all in the classic male road narrative, when women take the wheel on the silver screen, the cars they drive take on important supporting roles. Whether a classic car, utilitarian vehicle, convertible, luxury sedan or clunker, these cinematic vehicles are significant not only for the meanings they convey, but also for their ability to challenge common woman driver stereotypes. 

The films selected were Grandma, Anywhere But Here, Tammy, Boys on the Side, Tumbleweeds, Cloudburst, Camilla, Bonneville, Manny and Lo, and Leaving Normal. In each of these motion pictures, the type of car – classic, luxury, convertible, utilitarian, clunker, and family – was not just a prop, but rather, was integral to the story and the woman who drove it. As I note in the abstract, “Focusing on the car rather than the journey, the paper reassesses the role and significance of the automobile in film; examines how the woman’s car in film has the ability to disrupt both the dominant road trip and cultural narratives; and broadens the notion of women’s car use to include considerations of identity, agency, reinvention, friendship, family, and empowerment.’ The paper was submitted, returned for revision and resubmission, and accepted for publication in The Journal of Popular Culture.

Powder Puff competitor Dorothy Cokely in #41

In ‘From Powder Puff to W Series: The Evolution of Women-Only Racing’ I embarked on new territory. The only guideline for this project was to write on the history and politics of women in motorsport, a rather broad topic. I chose to focus specifically on the history of women’s only racing in an attempt to address the long standing question of whether women are best served by separate or equal opportunities. When I started the project, I was not familiar with motorsports in general, and other than a few famous names – Janet Guthrie, Lyn St James, and Danica Patrick – had little knowledge of the women who participated in it. However, by the time I completed the project, I had a better understanding of the obstacles and challenges women experience when competing in an historically associated with masculinity and the male driver. As I write in the abstract:

Throughout its storied history, motorsports has been unwelcoming to women. Consequently, it has been necessary for female racers to develop unique strategies to enter what has long existed as an exclusive masculine enclave. While entry can be facilitated through a familial relationship with a male driver, women without such connections often get their start through participation in women-only racing events. Although these races – e.g. Powder Puff, Formula Woman, and W Series – have provided women with the opportunity to enter the track, they have not been without controversy. Detractors argue that women will not be considered legitimate racers unless they compete on the same track as men. Proponents view women-only racing not only as a way to attract more women into the sport, but also as an important source of skill development, support, and community building.

This paper investigates the evolution of women-only racing, from its early introduction as a media stunt, to its current incarnation as a proving ground for serious female open wheel racers. Informed by historical documents, news articles, and personal accounts, it considers how women-only racing complicates, facilitates, and liberates women’s entry, participation, and recognition in the masculine world of motorsports.

The completed chapter was submitted, returned for revisions, then sent off to the publisher. Lives in the Fast Lane: Essays on the History and Politics of Motor Racing will be published in 2022.

The author [right] is pictured with her creative partner [center] and the actor [left]

The last project was perhaps the most fun, as everyone loves writing about themselves. ‘McCann & Me: One Woman’s Experience in Detroit Automotive Advertising’ is a recollection of the three years I spent working in the car advertising business 35 years ago. As I write in the introduction: 

Prior to my (very) late entry into academia, I spent nearly two decades in advertising, as an art director, copywriter, creative group supervisor, and eventually a Vice President. A few of those years were spent at McCann-Erickson, one of the many automotive agencies centered in metropolitan Detroit during this time. My career spanned the 1970s and 1980s, a very different era in the advertising world. It was the pre-digital age –  computers were not yet commonplace; the Internet was not yet public; photographers still used film; and MTV was in its infancy. This recollection should not be taken as representative of a universal experience; rather, it provides a glimpse into Detroit automotive agency culture during a particular moment in US automotive history.

The article was submitted, returned for revision, and accepted. It will be published in the upcoming issue of the Automotive History Review.

The COVID pandemic resulted in serious disruption in the way we all live. I was fortunate to have been able to put that time to productive use. To have three articles written, revised, and accepted for publication in one year is something of which I am very proud. As I enter my second COVID year, I have begun a new non-ethnographical and fun project. ‘Pink Power: The Barbie Car and Female Automobility’, will be presented at the June 2021 virtual PCA conference.

Car CultureCar Stories

Learning to Drive

Posted on by Chris Lezotte
1960 Corvair, parked in front of my Detroit house.

A recent article in Jalopnik reflected on an embarrassing moment experienced by the author while taking her driver’s test. Her reflection inspired a deluge of equally entertaining ‘learning to drive’ stories in the comment section. Like many who read the article, I took a moment to reflect upon my driver education experiences. Unlike the majority of my peers, I was not eager to get a driver’s license. Because my mother was a widow who never learned to drive, I was allowed to get a driver’s permit at 15 so that I could transport her to shopping, church, and anywhere she needed to go. The stipulation was that I could only drive if an adult was in the car with me. It was a strange condition considering that the adult – my mother – was an individual who had no idea how to start a car, let alone drive it. But those were the rules. And if I wanted to go anywhere, I had to take my non-driving mother along with me. So suffice it to say that my first year of driving was not a pleasurable one. 

During the 1960s, driver’s ed was a course offered at many high schools. Since the high school I attended – located in downtown Detroit – did not have a driver’s ed program, I took the course the summer between my freshman and sophomore year at the local high school. I don’t remember much about it except that we drove Falcons with automatic transmissions. At the time, the ‘family’ car my brother drove – and I was to share – was a 1960 Corvair with a 3-on-the-floor manual transmission. If I wanted to drive it, I had to learn how to drive a stick shift. My very patient married brother –  a Detroit police officer – volunteered to teach me. We spent many evenings after school at the Lutheran High West parking lot in my neighborhood going round and around as I ground the gears figuring out how to engage the clutch. A few school mates happened to see [or should I say hear] me there, and would make grinding sounds whenever they saw me walking down the halls. My married sister had a stick-shift station wagon, and when I went there to babysit, my brother-in-law provided driving lessons in exchange for taking care of the kids. By the time I took my driver’s test, I was pretty adept at shifting gears. Our next car was a 1964, three-on-the-tree Pontiac Tempest, which I adapted to pretty easily. As I grew older, I appreciated that I could drive a stick; it helped me focus on my driving, and it made getting behind the wheel more fun. It has also served as a source of surprise; even or perhaps especially today, few expect a woman to be able to drive a stick. But I enjoyed having a skill most others did not. So much so that nearly all of the cars I have owned in my 55 years of driving have had manual transmissions, including my two classic cars – a ‘49 Ford and 1967 Shelby Mustang.

When I turned 16, the adult-in-the-car restrictions were lifted, and I no longer had to take my mom with me whenever I wanted to go for a ride. It was my first taste of freedom, and the beginning of my understanding of what automobility makes possible. As a woman who came of age in the 1960s, that was no small thing. And it was this ‘driver’s education’, as well as many experiences that followed, that led me to focus my research on women and cars. 

Auto IndustryCar CultureWomen & Car Advertising

Mustangs and the Woman Driver

Posted on by Chris Lezotte
1966 Mustang print advertisement

When muscle cars congregate at classic car shows across southeastern Michigan, there are always a large number of Ford Mustangs in attendance. One of the most successful vehicles to ever drive off Ford’s assembly line, the Mustang remains popular after over 50 years. With the introduction of the Mustang in 1964, Ford created what would evolve into a new class of muscle car – the pony car – the only muscle car class that still exists today. However, the Mustang was not originally conceived to fulfill demand for a high performance vehicle.  Rather, as a quick, sporty, and fun-to-drive automobile with an affordable price tag, the Mustang was designed to appeal to both the young and young-at-heart. The wide selection of options available provided consumers with the opportunity to create a Mustang to meet automotive needs and personal desires. Lee Iacocca, who spearheaded the development of the Mustang, recognized the potential of the massive college educated baby boomer market. With the introduction of the Mustang, Iacocca sought to change Ford’s “stogy” image among boomers entering the workforce (Clor 10). Unlike the development of the Pontiac GTO, which was geared specifically to young men with a need for speed, the Mustang attempted to reach a much more diverse audience.

However, the Ford Mustang’s lack of power, especially in those production models with smaller V-6 engines, contributed to its growing reputation as the “secretary’s car.” Writes Clor, “the hard core muscle-car performance crowd wasn’t embracing the Mustang as a true muscle car in the same way they recognized the GTOs, the big block Galaxies, Impalas, and a handful of torque-laden Mopars” (30). While he recognized the demand for a more powerful Mustang, Iacocca could only do so much with the existing powertrain. Therefore, he relied on a partnership with Carroll Shelby to create a high-end, low volume “halo” performance car that would not only create “buzz” and give a boost to the Mustang’s street cred, but would also drive sales of the “more practical, affordable, and plentiful regular Mustangs” (Clor 30). It wasn’t until 1967 – inspired by the introduction of pony car competitors such as the Chevy Camaro, Plymouth Barracuda, and Pontiac Firebird – that Ford designers and engineers “went back to the drawing board to give ‘America’s Favorite Fun Car’ more style and power” (Clor 37).

1966 Mustang print advertisement

While the original Mustang was available with either a V-6 or V-8, the demand for the more powerful (relatively speaking) V-8 was high, no doubt inspired by the introduction of the GTO and other intermediate sized high performance muscle cars the same year. In the first year of the Mustang’s production, nearly three quarters of buyers demanded the V-8, which led to a surplus of the pedestrian six-cylinder model. Young women were targeted as buyers for the less powerful car; Ford cited the superior fuel economy of the smaller engine to entice the female buyer. An ad with the headline “Six and the Single Girl,” which played off the title of Helen Gurley Brown’s best seller, promoted the “practicality and sporty style of the six-cylinder Mustang” (Clor 22). Other advertisements in a similar vein soon followed. Through the application of gender to engine size, Ford was able to successfully define and market two different cars under one brand. While young women were encouraged to embrace the “secretary’s car,” the GT version, boasting 271 horsepower, became the popular choice of young male performance enthusiasts.

The Mustang was not conceived as a muscle car, but evolved into one as a response to the growing young male market hooked on power and performance. While the majority of classic Mustang owners today are male, the appeal of the Mustang to female drivers remains strong. The classic car hobby is built on nostalgia; those who participate in it often do so as a way to connect to a younger self. As the owner of a 1965 Mustang convertible told me, “this car lets me return to being a teen and crazy and I can relive all those things in my mind while I drive” (Interview). Unlike its automotive predecessors, the Mustang was designed to embody youth and freedom rather than functionality and practicality. Its buyers were attracted to its clean design, sportiness, affordability, and its promise as “fun-to-drive.” And unlike the GTO, Dodge Charger, and other “true” muscle cars, the Mustang – albeit the less powerful “secretary model” – was advertised to women. Thus many classic Mustang owners today remember the original not only in the context of muscle cars, but as an automobile driven and admired by women.

Classic Mustang owners often recall how female friends and family members reacted to the car’s introduction. “The year the Mustang was born,” writes the owner of a ‘65, “a good female friend of the family would point them out and say that is a classy car!” (Interview).  Women also remember Mustangs owned by mothers and big sisters. “When I was 13,” exclaims a classic Mustang owner, “my girlfriend’s mom owned a hard top automatic Mustang. I could not reach the pedals because my legs were too short so my girlfriend used her legs and I steered the car.” (Interview). Today’s classic Mustang owners often had teenage boyfriends with the more powerful models. Some had the opportunity to drive them, while others simply longed for one of their own. As one woman remarked about her recent purchase of a classic ‘65, “I wanted something that kind of brought back memories to me about that Mustang back in my younger days” (Interview).  Perhaps because driving a Mustang – rather than a GTO or ‘Cuda – was in the realm of possibility to those young women coming of age during the 1960s, purchasing the car 50 years later provides an opportunity for a once young woman’s dreams to come true. Driving her classic 1965 Mustang today, a graying 59-year-old woman remarked, “if we didn’t have to look in the mirror, inside the body feels [like] that young person again” (Interview).

1984 Mustang print advertisement

The Mustang is the only pony car with uninterrupted production. After the 1973 oil embargo brought the muscle car era to a close, the pony car returned to its original origins as a fun, stylish, and sporty car with more style than power. During the 1990s, the introduction of electronic fuel injection, turbochargers, and overdrive transmission resulted in more powerful ponies. However, the pony car didn’t return to its former incarnation as a powerful muscle machine until 2005, when Ford introduced a redesigned “retrofuturistic” Mustang on the SN-95 platform that married the iconic style elements of the late 1960s fastback models with modern automotive technology. As the first of what would become a growing stable of “retro” pony cars, the Mustang was resounding success. Much of its popularity can be attributed to the woman driver. While classic Mustangs are owned primarily by women of the boomer generation, the “retro” Mustang has been embraced by new generations of female car enthusiasts. In fact, the Mustang is not only the most popular retro muscle car among female buyers, but nearly a third of new Mustang owners are women (hedgescompany.com). Whether single and seeking a bit of automotive independence, or as married empty nesters looking for a new lease on life, many women have found that getting behind the wheel of a modern day Mustang has the ability to change the way they view themselves and the world around them.

2016 Mustang named Women’s World Car of the Year

Throughout multiple generations, the Mustang has been a popular choice for the woman driver. As noted by auto site thenewswheel.com, “There’s an old stigma that muscle cars and performance vehicles are basically the automotive equivalent of G.I. Joes—i.e. toys made pretty much exclusively for boys […  ] Fifty years of women owning Mustangs makes this demonstrably untrue (particularly when one considers that the first person to buy a Mustang was a woman), and the fact that women are buying a ton of Mustangs certainly helps dispel that silly misconception.”

Clor, J. (2007). The Mustang dynasty. San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC.