Who was Elizabeth Carmichael? The subject ‘Lady and the Dale’ has a fascinating history

With the ever-increasing prevalence of electric and hybrid cars today, drivers have grown accustomed to extremely high gas mileage rates or not having to worry about refueling at all. But in the gasoline-short 1970s, such luxury was just a pipe dream. A woman named Elizabeth Carmichael claimed she had the answer to the decade’s energy crisis in the form of a sleek three-wheeled car called the Dale. But who was Elizabeth Carmichael, and why aren’t we all zipping into Little Dales today?

HBO decided to answer this question in its new docu-series The Lady and the Dale. The series, produced by the Duplass Brothers, dictates the rise and fall of Geraldine “Liz” Carmichael, one of the most fascinating crooks of the twentieth century. Carmichael’s criminal career began over a decade before she gained national notoriety with the Dale. According to the doc, Carmichael was transgender and, before becoming a woman, had already broken the law. She has become wanted by the FBI in 1961 on counterfeit charges, according to DriveTribe. It would take another 13 years before she was caught, during which time Carmichael transitioned and it was the Dale who turned out to be her downfall.

In 1974 Carmichael founded a company in California called Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation after discovering inventor Dale Clifft’s design for a fuel-efficient three-wheeled car, as stated in the paper. She created a unique and inspiring story for herself, claiming that she was a mechanical engineer, widow of a NASA engineer, and single mother of five. That last bit was a bit true, because Carmichael had fathered the children with his wife, Vivian Barrett Michael, whom Carmichael publicly introduced as his secretary after his transition, according to a 1975 article in People. A ruthless promoter, Carmichael appeared in all national media with claims about how the Dale would revolutionize the auto industry. The three-wheeled car reportedly gained 70 miles per gallon and cost just $ 2,000, a tempting prospect for a country reeling from a recession and gasoline shortage.

But unfortunately for these potential buyers, the Dale never materialized. Although the company has absorbed untold amounts of money from investors, the car itself has remained an unsustainable prototype. Mistrust Twentieth Century Motor Car Corp. Due to the company’s lack of a license to sell stock or automobiles, the state of California ordered the company to stop doing both, according to Hems. Shortly after, one of the company’s employees shot and killed a colleague, bringing more negative publicity, and Carmichael and several other employees were charged with fraud. Carmichael attempted to flee to Dallas, where she was apprehended in 1975 and was tried in 1977. There she was convicted of her earlier 1961 charges as well as a series of Dale-related fraud charges. She was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $ 30,000 in restitution, according to Jalopnik. But before showing up in jail, Carmichael again went on fire.

It wasn’t until 1989 that Carmichael was finally apprehended, thanks to her appearance as a missing person in an episode of Unsolved mysteries. She used the name Katherine Elizabeth Johnson and operated a flower shop in Dale, TX (no link). After that, Carmichael’s story gets a bit hazy. Jalopnik claims to have served ten years in prison and, as of 2013, ran a roadside flower stand in Austin. However, several other sources, including Hemmings, claim she died of cancer in 2004.

What ultimately happened to Carmichael isn’t that important when you look at the big picture. Here’s a woman who was at the center of one of the most compelling stories in automotive history, and many more people are going to hear that story now thanks to The Lady and the Dale.