- shares International Women's Day. This year's theme is #ChooseToChallenge – a challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change. Women have been making a mark in the automotive industry for a long time now, dating all the way back to 1888. This was the year Bertha Benz became the first person in history to drive an automobile over a long distance, in turn producing the first sales for Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Features we use on an every day basis were in fact, designed by women. In 1893 Margaret A. Wilcox invented the first car heater, in 1914 Florence Lawrence created the turn signal, while Dr Gladys West developed the basis for the GPS in 1956.