You’ve seen her on mudflaps. Lots, and lots of mudflaps.
Feminists have ranted about her as an objectification of women. Thelma and Louise made fun of her, and the truck drivers who displayed her.
But do you know her story?
It seems that when mudflaps first came out, they had a problem.
The mudflaps would fray at the end, because as truck tires picked up rocks, the rocks would fly at the mud flaps, tearing them. Gradually, the mudflap would fray away at the end, until it wasn’t offering very much protection to other drivers.
This meant that you had to replace the mudflaps fairly often. Even worse, if a mudflap wore excessively, you could get an expensive ticket for having an inadequate mudflap.
Then, Frank Bosworth hit on the idea of placing a little piece of metal on the back of the mudflap to reinforce it.
His mudflaps lasted 10 times longer then anyone else’s. Pretty soon, if you were going to buy a mudflap, you were going to buy one from Frank.
The shape of that piece of metal? He designed it off a picture he had of his wife from their first date. They went to the beach together, and he snapped that picture. It had been on his desk ever since. She’d died of cancer that year, and he wanted to remember her as she was.
Because of his patent, for years, the only long lasting mudflaps you could get were Frank’s, and he refused to change the design. His patent has expired now, so you can get mudflaps in other designs now.
Which is too bad really. By the way, her name was Lisa.
So the next time you see a Mud Flap Madonna, you’re really seeing a sign that says “Frank Loves Lisa”.
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