{"id":2571,"date":"2022-06-27T05:45:22","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T05:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/?p=2571"},"modified":"2024-03-25T09:06:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T09:06:23","slug":"women-with-drive-dorothy-levitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/women-with-drive-dorothy-levitt\/","title":{"rendered":"Women with drive &#8211; Dorothy Levitt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Since its appearance in the late 1890s, motor-racing has been seen as a masculine sport. But even at the beginning, there were women who stood out for their passion for speed as much as their knowledge of the \u201chorseless carriage\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dorothy Levitt was a woman who was ahead of her time. She was a multihyphenate \u2013 the first British woman racing driver, holder of the world\u2019s first water speed record and women&#8217;s world land speed record, accomplished motor-boat driver, excellent horsewoman, a driving instructor to royalty, a journalist, and an author. To that we add &#8211; trailblazer.<\/p>\n<h4>Dorothy Levitt: The Trailblazer<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n<h5><strong>What she gave us: Rear-view mirror<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Dorothy Levitt lived fast and died young. But in her short 39-year life, she pushed the boundaries of what women can do in the motoring world at the turn of the 20th century.<\/p>\n<p>Ostensibly, she started driving because of a publicity stunt.\u00a0 Her boss at the car company where she was working as a secretary wanted to draw attention by putting a woman behind the wheel &#8211; a rare sight in those days. She not only picked up the prerequisite driving skills, soon she was setting speed records while learning all about the intricacies of the automobile.<\/p>\n<p>Levitt who enjoyed writing, kept a diary of her exploits. An extract from September 1904 went: \u201cLight Car Trials. Successful. Drove small De Dion, 8 horse-power. Entirely alone. No mechanic attended to car. Did everything myself. Had non-stop for five days but small difficulties on sixth and last day.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2583\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2583\" src=\"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Dorothy_Leviit_ill_003_lg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2583 size-full\" width=\"1000\" height=\"760\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Dorothy_Leviit_ill_003_lg.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Dorothy_Leviit_ill_003_lg-300x228.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Dorothy_Leviit_ill_003_lg-768x584.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2583\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dorothy Levitt (photo)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dorothy Levitt was a woman who was ahead of her time. She was a multihyphenate \u2013 the first British woman racing driver, holder of the world\u2019s first water speed record\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-post-article3.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[153,1],"tags":[33,171,184,237,249,172,34,49,231,51,238],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infotainment","category-stories","tag-connected","tag-dorothy-levitt","tag-history","tag-international-womens-day","tag-iwd","tag-rear-view-mirror","tag-stories","tag-voices","tag-women-history","tag-women-in-automotive","tag-womens-history-month"],"acf":{"post_image_or_video":"image","post_image":2573,"post_video":null,"post_tag":"#STORIES","post_meta":[{"meta_text":"8 MAR 2023"},{"meta_text":"1 min READ"}]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5752,"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions\/5752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdmotors.sg\/the-drive-hive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}