Smile when you say "chick car"

Salut Amis 6!

Chick cars have been around ever since car manufacturers decided that women were some kind of niche market. It didn’t take consumers long to decide that if a car was marketed to women, there had to be something wrong with it. And voila, a stigma was born.

One of the most cockeyed examples of the chick car was the Dodge La Femme, manufactured in 1955 and 1956. It was based on a Chrysler Newport body, but came in two-tone pink and white, with pink gold-flecked cloth inside, and was marketed to “Her Royal Highness, the American Woman.” In all fairness, Dodge DID provide an item that is sadly lacking in automobiles today – a special compartment for a purse. They even provided the purse itself. Although about 1,500 of these cars were built, women somehow managed not to scoop them up.

Then, there was the Citroen Ami 6, launched in 1961 as a vehicle for women: “Pour vous Madame.” Partially because it was based on the venerable 2CV platform, and perhaps the French really are smarter than the rest of us, the Ami 6 became the best selling car in the French market at the time, with over a million sold in 1966. The reverse-raked rear window was quite chic, and the Ami’s seats were - bonus - easily removable. Early sales pitches showed them being used for picnic chairs.

 

Meanwhile, over in England, a debonair car designer named Alec Issigonis was charged with the task of creating a small, inexpensive vehicle for the British housewife. The diminutive gem he whipped up was called a Mini, and it certainly was. The wheels were a petite eight inches, and the engine was mounted sideways to allow maximum passenger room. One thing led to another, and the British Mini became an icon of the 1960s – no longer just a housewife’s car, but a fashion accessory, a rally car and even a movie star.

These days, the term chick car is bestowed upon cars like the Mazda Miata, pretty much any Volkswagen convertible (the Beetle qualifies with or without a ragtop), the Fiat 500, the erstwhile Saturn, Toyota Yaris – anything that’s small and stylish. Or, perceived to be underpowered. And usually, it’s a guy who’s making the decision about the monicker. In other words, if you’re a manly man, you wouldn’t be caught dead in this car.

And that’s a shame. Because most so-called chick cars are good-looking, fuel-efficient and affordable vehicles. Isn’t that what today’s consumer is all about? Shouldn’t the term “chick car” be a badge of honour instead of a slur? It should be as highly prized as a Consumers Reports “best buy.”

Perhaps our society will one day be evolved enough to appreciate that cars don’t come with a gender bias. After all, a chick car can’t tell whether it’s a macho man or a girly woman driving, can it? 

It takes a woman ...

A cold hard rain pounded Mary Anderson (pictured, left) and a blustery gale whipped her skirt as she boarded a New York streetcar on a bitter, sleety day in November, 1903. She shook her overcoat and settled into her seat, but an icy breeze wrapped itself around her ankles. Mary looked to the front of the car and saw the shivering driver had his window open. In fact, he was looking out the window as he drove, since the pelting rain had completely obscured his windshield.

It only took Mary a couple of months to invent a contraption that consisted of a lever with a rubber blade, that could move across the windshield to clean it. And that was the forerunner of today’s windshield wiper.

But women weren’t just finding solutions to dirty windshields. In 1923, the U.S. Women’s Bureau Bulletin No. 28 listed 345 inventions by women – and half were related to automobiles. Another 25 related to traffic signals, turn indicators, a carburetor, clutch mechanism, electric engine starter and starting mechanism.

So how did the car industry develop a reputation for being male-dominated? In the early 1900s, women seemed to be all over it. In 1917, Charlotte Bridgwood refined the windshield wiper into an electrically driven system that used rollers instead of blades. This eventually evolved into the automatic windshield wipers that are standard equipment on cars all over the world.

Charlotte’s daughter, Florence Lawrence went on to become a film star and an auto enthusiast who once said, “A car to me is something that is almost human, something that responds to kindness, understanding and care, just as people do.”

Florence carried on her mother’s work, since the automobile could stand some improvements. She placed an arm on the rear fender which could be activated to ascend or descend by push-buttons located by the driver’s seat – so drivers could signal their intention to turn right or left. Florence also created a mechanism that indicated a full stop, activated by stepping on the footbrake.

As early as 1916, the Girl Scouts had an “automobiling badge” for which girls had to demonstrate driving skill, auto mechanics and first aid skills.

Have we been going backwards? Helene Rother was a French jewellery designer who fled the Nazis in 1942 and came to America. She was the first woman to work as an automotive designer, as a staff member of the interior styling team of General Motors in Detroit. In 1947, Helene opened her own design studio, specializing in design for automotive interiors.

So when were the terms “chick car” and “lady driver” coined, and how did they come by their derogatory meaning? Why are women deemed to be outsiders in the car world? Even Henry Ford – although he did not approve of married women working outside the home – considered his female employees on a par with their male counterparts, and made a point of paying them the same as men. How rare is that these days?

Sadly, these days, woman auto mechanics are still a novelty. And that would not be welcome knowledge to Wilma Russey, who in 1915, became the first woman to work as a taxi driver in New York – and was known to be an expert mechanic.