It was International Women’s Day this past Saturday, and let’s be honest here: the car world hasn’t traditionally been great about making women feel welcome. Which is, objectively, ridiculous – cars are something every human can be excited about. I mean, if you stand near an Iso Grifo A3/C and don’t feel something, the issue has nothing to do with gender, it has to do with the fact that you clearly don’t have a functioning metabolism. So in honor of International Women’s Day let’s just talk a bit about one incredible woman from the world of cars, rally driver Michèle Mouton.
If you don’t know about Mouton, I suppose the barest essentials are that she is the most successful World Rally Champion driver who happens to be a woman, and considering she was winning international rallies outright during the peak of Group B madness, that’s saying something. She was also among the first people to rally a turbocharged 300+ horsepower, all-wheel-drive car, the now-legendary Audi Quattro. Driving that car in 1981 gave her her first outright WRC victory, at the Rallye Sanremo.
Just to give an example of how this achievement was received at the time from her almost-exclusively male competitors, the following is the headline and quote from a newspaper article at the time, which ran in the Hamburger Abendblatt, machine-translated from German:
The men were stunned
After the victory of the Frenchwoman Michele Mouton (30) at the Rally San Remo, there was an embarrassed silence among the best rally drivers in the world. The Finn Hannu Nikkola, his compatriot Ari Vatanen and also world champion Walter Röhrl (Regensburg) did not know what to say. For the first time, a woman had won a world championship race. A historic event that left the men’s world stunned. Michele Mouton (she drove an Audi Quattro) and her Italian co-driver Fabricia Pons were celebrated by the spectators in San Remo, and she said: “I think we were the best prepared.”
Men being speechless and stunned is actually one of the better reactions men had to Mouton’s rallying career; when she first started rallying, in 1974, driving a Renault Alpine A110, the shocked and embarrassed male drivers, incredulous at her skill, demanded the FIA tear down and inspect her car for any cheats or irregularities.
(photo: Skoda Motorsport)
The FIA found nothing amiss with the car, only revealing a lot of fragile egos in the teardown process.
Mouton got that car from her father, who was appalled by the bald tires and generally crappy condition of the car she was co-driving in with a friend who introduced her to the sport. Along with the Alpine, Mouton’s farther provided financial support for a team for one year – Mouton had precisely that one year to prove that she had what it took, otherwise she agreed to give up the rallying dream.
She, of course, had what it took.
(Photo: VW AG)
Along with rallying, she also competed in the legendary Pike’s Peak hillclimb. Driving her Audi Quattro, she won that event outright in 1985, despite receiving all sorts of what was essentially harassment from racing officials, penalizing her for spinning her tires and driving too fast, resulting in her right to drive on non-race streets revoked, which meant her car had to be pushed to the start in neutral before the race, since the road leading to the start was technically a public road.
This same sort of scrutiny and punishment was not applied to other drivers, least of which any member of the Unser racing family, which had dominated Pike’s Peak for years.
Here’s a video of the Audi being pushed to the start, and Mouton’s subsequent blast up the mountain:
As you may have guessed, the Unsers in their big V8s weren’t happy to lose to what seemed like peak European weirdness: turbocharging, five cylinders, AWD, and a woman driver. It’s said that Al Unser had some shitty things to say to her, to which Mouton is said to have responded “If you have the balls, you can try to race me back down as well!”
(Photo: VW AG)
The next year, 1986, Bobby Unser won the hillclimb, but, tellingly, did so in an Audi Quattro. That year Mouton had moved to other challenges, driving a Peugeot to win the German Rally Championship.
There’s so much more about Mouton worth talking about, but this is just a Cold Start and it’s already late going up. If you want to know more and just don’t feel like working for the next hour an a half, you can watch this great documentary about Mouton, and if you use headphones, I bet your boss will think you’re working:
Mouton was first and foremost, just an amazing driver. Period. What makes her especially remarkable is not that she is a woman, but that she was an amazing driver who, for no good reason, got more scrutiny, shit, impediments, harassment, and all manner of other unhelpful bullshit from her other drivers and the entire structure of the sport she excelled in, and yet managed to do incredible things, anyway.
Anyway, happy International Women’s Day!
late getting to this story, but gotta love that the Hamburg paper found it fit to publish her age, but not of the three male drivers listed immediately after her. i’d say we’d moved on, but i just saw a similar occurrence pointed out recently, though i can’t recall the publication or the article now.
Yeah, this is amazing and didn’t know about all the history…and yes, women are also human beings like the rest of us! (for those who don’t realize) and can do whatever they put their mind to.
Speaking of great women in motorsports, one of the guests at next month’s Charlotte AutoFair will be none other than Shirley Muldowney!
Speaking of women rally drivers, I wonder how Pat Moss would have done in open competition. Stirling Moss’ sister dominated the women’s class in the 50s but never got to run head to head with the men.
Thanks for posting that biography of Mouton. I watched and managed to get some work done at the same time. Great stuff.
The best thing you can hear after a victory is “embarrassed silence”. Screw applause. It’s overrated.
I always want to talk about Michèle Mouton, any day of the year!
In addition to all of her accomplishments in the rally world, Ms. Mouton is a genuinely fascinating human being. I strongly agree with a movie about her life being a worthwhile endeavor.
I lived in Albuquerque NM through most of the 1990s (where the Unsers are a prominent family) and heard a lot about the Unser family’s racing prowess and accomplishments. It was popular lore in the city.
Somehow this is the first I’ve heard of that 1985 loss on Pikes Peak and the sick burn Al received from Ms. Mouton about whether he had the balls to race her back down. I bet his head exploded! LOL
Another noteworthy woman is Bertha Benz, the adventuresome and frustrated wife of Karl Benz.
If we’re making suggestions for next year’s IWD Autopian article: my engineering hero is Beatrice Shilling.
In WW2 she designed a fuel restrictor that fixed the Merlin engines problem with negative G manoeuvres. Then she went to the fighter bases to fit them herself.
She also raced motorcycles and cars, engineering them herself.
She refused to marry her husband until he too had managed to do a 100pmh lap of Brooklands like she had.
Thanks for introducing me to her!
A remarkable woman indeed! Though FYI Torch has already written about Bertha Benz on the old site for International Women’s Day some years ago: https://www.jalopnik.com/meet-bertha-benz-the-woman-who-took-the-first-real-dri-451617383/
Thanks for pointing out the article from his old stint at Jalopnik!
I have vague recollection of reading about Michele Mouton winning various events back in the day, but only referenced as a “French driver”. The coverage was so light it didn’t cover the fact that a) she was female and b) that she dealt with all that sexism. Young, stupid, uneducated American me just thought Michele seemed like a weird name for a French guy.
I wish I’d known she was female back then. I’d have probably had more interest in European racing had I known.
The name fit though. She was pretty godlike behind the wheel.
Michele Mouton is truly one of the greats! I’m pleased to see her gaining more appreciation in the last few years.
And I want to third Chronometric and MaximillianMeen’s suggestion of a Luc Besson directed film about her life.
We know male racing drivers, like other celebrities and especially in that era, had a tendency to be skirt chasers. Mouton literally redefined that term.
And she and Fredrik Johnsson first organized the Race of Champions (no, not the International Race of Champions) back in 1988, with the trophy awarded in honor of Henri Toivonen.
Souma Yergon, Sou Nou Yergon
We are shakin’ the tree
Souma Yergon, Sou Nou Yergon
We are shakin’ the tree
Waiting your time, dreaming of a better life
Waiting your time, you’re more than just a wife
You don’t have to do what your mother has done
She has done, this is your life, this new life has begun
It’s your day, a woman’s day
It’s your day, a woman’s day
–Peter Gabriel
This seemed appropriate.
I think Michele Mouton needs the “World’s Fastest Indian” treatment.
She and her story are truly inspirational.
Hell, Shirley Muldowney got her “Heart Like a Wheel” way back in 1983. Ms. Mouton is overdue her shot at celebrity-in-celluloid. Just need a good French director to support it. Luc Besson’s not doing anything these days. He’d certainly make an interesting version.
“Marion Cotillard IS Michele Mouton!”