Women car designers and cars for women: the Arrol Galloway and the Volvo YCC

This is the tale of two cars for women in two centuries. One was a prototype design and the other went into production. This is the tale of a hidden history, a whisper of silent sources and a song of unsung heroines. Dorothee Pullinger's career as an aero and auto engineer is an example to us all of blithe disregard for convention and of successful self-education. She was an active engineer and business woman in the first half of the twentieth century. You may recently have seen in the media that a team of women at Volvos have designed a car for women, widely hailed as a first. A great success for them but not a first by any means. This paper will compare the two stories of two cars for women at the beginnings of their respective centuries.