*In Wacky Races, Penelope has long blond hair in a full fringe. She wears a purple racer helmet with goggles. She also wears a dark pink rider jacket with a purple turtleneck and purple gloves, pink skirt with red pants underneath and white high-heel boots.

In The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Penelope's eyes resemble those of Daphne Blake, and despite having white sclerae, she wears red lipstick. Her helmet is replaced by a magenta pilot helmet with matching white goggles. She now wears a hot pink long-sleeved jacket with a matching belt and long magenta scarf, which is hanging loose on the right side. Even though she still wears her red pants and white boots from the Wacky Races, her gloves are now white.

In "Cross Country Double Cross", Penelope's blond hair is loose as she uses her helmet to block the hose which the Hooded Claw used to flood the train car.

Penelope Pitstop was the only female driver in Wacky Races. She drove car #5: the Compact Pussycat, which was essentially a beauty salon on wheels. Iwao Takamoto said in an interview that he and Jerry Eisenberg created her as an afterthought, as Joseph Barbera had suggested that a woman be included in the Wacky Races cast.

Aside from Dick Dastardly, the male racers are very chivalrous toward her, and rarely attack her car, sometimes even allowing her to pass them. The Turbo Terrific driver, Peter Perfect, is particularly fond of her, frequently calling her "Pretty Penny".

In her own series, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, she had become a jet-setting heiress in 1912. The Ant Hill Mob had become Penelope's bodyguards, protecting her from the Hooded Claw and his twin henchmen, the Bully Brothers.

In the 2017 series, she has a twin sister named Pandora Pitstop.

southern belle. Although she is blind to the fact her guardian is her arch nemesis in disguise, she is very smart and often manages to get herself out of trouble before her true guardians the Ant Hill Mob can get to her in time. She wears a purple helmet with white goggles, a purple scarf, a pink-purple jacket, white gloves, red pants, and white go-go boots. Penelope is often very positive and friendly. She considers all the other racers friends of hers, including Dick Dastardly and Muttley. On one occasion when Dick Dastardly was kicked out of Wacky Racing, Penelope ensured he'd get back into the league as Wacky Racing wasn't the same without his cheating attempts. She also engineered a plan where the racers would purposefully lose to Dastardly so he could impress his father.*