The Lady and the Dale on HBO: Did the Dale Car Ever Go on Sale?
On 2/1/21 at 4:55 AM EST
The Inventor. This time, the series tells the story of entrepreneur Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael, who in the 1970s made waves in the car industry with her Dale Car. According to her, the car operated 100 percent electronically, was nearly impossible to tip over and could withstand a 30 miles an hour collision into a wall without real damage all for under $2,000.
If this three-wheeled car sounds too good to be true, that is because it was and Carmichael was not who she claimed to be. Assigned male at birth, she was wanted on counterfeiting charges from the time before she transitioned.
Elaine Chung
Geraldine Elizabeth “Liz” Carmichael didn’t want to just create a new car she wanted to change the world; be the next Henry Ford; the first woman to disrupt the automobile industry. Her audacious plan to market a cheap, futuristic-looking, fuel-efficient, three-wheeled car is the subject of the new HBO documentary
The Lady and the Dale. Carmichael claimed her background was in engineering but it was her showmanship and public relations prowess which really set the Dale apart. She sat for interviews with
Newsweek and
People,
telling the latter, “They thought Henry Ford was crazy. I’ll show them. I’m going to rule the auto industry like a queen.”