A Girls Guide to Cars

Sara Lacey - Managing Editor for A Girls Guide to Cars

With the mission of empowering women to be smarter, happier car owners, we empower and engage women about cars on their terms. Through a community of writers and influencers, we create content about cars and the life we live in and around cars.

Contact: Sara Lacey at Visit Online!

             

• Let’s talk about the origin of AGGC – how did this all get started? (Who/What/Where/When/Why)
• Is AGGC a digital magazine? What services or features does it offer ?
• Who are some of the authors/contributors? 
• In the intro we mentioned women think about cars differently than men, what does that mean exactly? How so? What are some of the most important topics covered by AGGC that women are interested in?
• Are there automotive brands that cater more to women, than others?
• How to engage women (invite) them the Car and Motorsports world?
• Future of AGGC? How can people help? Fund raising? Charity events? Becoming a writer?

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports related.

Born as a community of writers, influencers, friends, and women who buy care for and live their lives in and around their cars, their own car, the family car, and often the cars of family members. A girl’s guide to cars is dedicated to sharing car purchase information, experiences, and stories told from personal points of view, and focusing on what is important in a fun, smart advice from your best friend sort of way.

A girl’s Guide to Cars brings together the insights and views of writers and reviewers who share their unbiased, honest, and personal narratives about cars and their lives in cars. And with us to talk about this rapidly growing platform and share some great stories is managing editor Sarah Lacey. Thank you for having me.

It’s great to be here. So like [00:01:00] all good, break fix stories. We always say everyone has a story. So let’s talk about the origin story behind a Girls’ Guide to Cars. How did it all get started? What’s the who, what, where, when, and why Behind a Girls’ Guide to Cars. The founders, Scotty Reese was approached to develop this website back in 2013, and at the time, you know, she liked cars and enjoyed cars, but didn’t really have an enthusiast perspective or a passion that she has now.

And so she was invited to collaborate on this website. She wasn’t really certain that it was a thing that she wanted to do, and after kind of going away and thinking about it and doing some research, she was really struck by this statistic that 85% of car purchases are made by or influenced by women.

And that got her really thinking about, wow, how do manufacturers, how do dealerships communicate with women? And how can I facilitate a more comfortable relationship with women And cars then? Is a Girls Guide to Cars, a digital magazine? [00:02:00] What services or features does it offer? It is a magazine and you know, we have all of our articles that are posted there daily.

Usually update three times a day with either news or reviews or you know, travel pieces. So we have that, but then we’re also on YouTube at a Girls Guide to Cars on YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, you know, all of that. And we just started making our content available on Microsoft start. We also share our articles with Pure Wow and parents.com.

So, We’re trying to kind of make our stuff available everywhere. How is the content broken down? Are there different categories? What would I find there? If I was going to a girl’s guide card for the first time, if you went there, you would see just our main page that’s got our most recent posts, and that might be a review.

It might. Travel tips. We do podcasts and playlist recommendations. So it’s a little bit of everything, but then of course we do have the searchable bars at the top where you can look for reviews, you can look for [00:03:00] travel articles. So if there’s anything in particular you’re looking for, if you’re looking for a particular make or model, if you’re looking for a three row s u v, you can search that way too.

Do you have standing authors that are contributing to Girls’ Guide to Cars? I know I, I’ve seen Annika Carter contributed. Yeah. And she was a previous guest on the show as well as Elizabeth Blackstock, who is a jalopnik writer. Yeah. You invite folks and they come in or out, or do you have like a standing crew that are always there in the background with guests?

Writers? Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, it’s mostly built of freelance writers. We welcome lots of different types of writers into our environment. We do have like some travel bloggers, and we do really pride ourselves in this is something that you wanna break into. If you wanna learn how to write about cars, and talk about cars and learn about cars, we’re really happy to help you with that.

We do have writers such as myself, like you mentioned Elizabeth. She’s back at Jalopnik now, so we don’t have access to her writing as much as we would like, but we do try [00:04:00] to keep people coming back regularly. Some of our writers right now that we’re really excited about are Kristen Shaw and Jill Manillo.

If those names don’t sound familiar to you, they will soon because. They are embarking on a journey with the Rebel Rally and they’ve been sponsored by Hyundai and they’re driving a Santa Cruz in the Rebel Rally, which is an off-roading navigation type rally. You’ll be seen probably some pieces by them and about them after the rally wraps in the fall, so that’s pretty cool.

That is definitely very cool. Look forward to checking out some of those articles. We had any listeners that their interest is being peaked right now and they wanted to contribute an article. Is there a process for that or how would somebody do that? Yeah, we do actually have a tab on the website that you can click on that it’s under the About Us section and they can just click on that outlines how to become a contributor and kind of puts forth our expectations and basically fosters the conversation, Chris, to bring new people on board.

That’s awesome. Yeah, thanks for [00:05:00] asking that. We like contributors. So I pulled a thread out of there, which was, I heard you guys also cover motor sports. We are getting better at covering motor sports, like a lot of automotive related content. We’re working at finding people who enjoy that subject, whether it’s nascar, hot riding, whatever, and really writing about it more in a way that brings people in and helps people understand why our writers are passionate about those types of races.

So it could be something informative, like one of our favorite posts recently was how to attend your first F1 race. That was fun. Like I said, we’re gonna be covering Jill and Kristen coming up and we want to expand, but we wanna do it in a way that brings our audience in and doesn’t. Alienate them. Not unlike all of the other types of articles that we post, and we’ve talked about this before, especially on our drive-through episodes.

Right now we’re on the precipice of an awesome revolution in the [00:06:00] motorsports world. There’s more and more, not only just female drivers, but all female teams coming on the scene with the work that Beth Perretta is doing. And then just recently at the Mons with the Iron Dames running their Ferrari. I mean that’s gotta draw in the female Motorsport enthusiast as well.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, there are some pop culture moments with the Formula One Drive to Survive program bringing people into it. So I think that kind of lays a nice foundation and if we can work with that and kind of create that language and bring that viewer in and talk about other types of racing formats, we would love to do so.

But we also wanna do it in a way where we have experts talking about it and the helping people learn and and understand what those different types of races are about. Before we move on into the next segment of our talk and get deeper down into the conversation around a Girls Guide to cars, I wanna share something with you that I found really recently, and it might not be the earliest Girls Guide for Cars.

But it’s the earliest one I’ve ever seen. And she was a [00:07:00] previous guest on our show, and I didn’t know this existed until I unearthed it just last weekend. And this is published in 1984. This is Lynn St. James’ Car Owners Manual for Women. Oh my gosh. Oh, how cool. Wow. What a find. I looked at this and I said, how apropo, this must be like the original Girls Guide to Cars.

And it’s literally seriously laid out, just like a car manual that you could get in your glove box, all written by Lynn and all that. And I thought this was just an absolutely incredible find. So I thought this was really brilliant. Wow. What is she talking about in there? Everything, how to change your tires, you know, the pattern of twerking your wheels.

How to sell a car, how to buy a car. Oh my gosh, it’s a hundred and. 60 pages long. We actually reached out to her, cuz obviously she was on the show and she said, if you send it to me, there’s not many of these left around, I will autograph it and send it back. Did you Not yet. Cause I’m still, I’m still holding it.

Did [00:08:00] you save it for me? You saved it for me. Exactly. Thank you. How cool. You know, if anybody’s interested, we’re gonna post this in the show notes as well, just some photographs of it so you guys can see it. Again, this is a really, really rare book, but I thought this was really cool and right in line with what we were talking about.

Absolutely. Oh, what a fine. Very cool. So going back to the uh, girls Guide to card story. Mm-hmm. In the introduction we mentioned, and this is posted on the website as well. Women think differently about cars than men. So as a guy, yeah, I’m perplexed. What exactly does that mean? Can you explain it to me?

That is a question that I get so often. My consumer is a consumer. You know the thing that you should care about is the thing that you should care about. Our mantra really is cars on your terms. So whatever it is that you find important about a car is important because it’s important to you. I think at times men tend to focus on statistics.

They focus on the mechanics and the engineering, [00:09:00] and that is important to them and that obviously that’s important in the function of a car. Women for a long time are much more consumed about. Life in the car. How is it gonna function for me on a day-to-day basis? Yes, I know I’m going to get from point A to point B, I know that I’m going to be able to go out to my car and turn on the heater and have that happen.

And what’s important to me is am I gonna be comfortable? Am I gonna be able to reach the pedals? Am I going to have a good cup holder? When I started writing about cars from a woman’s perspective back in 2005 and 2006, it was just not okay to talk about. And it took a very concerted effort to say, no, it is okay to talk about because I do have a beverage in my car.

I do have kids in my car. So it is important to me how the car seats fit. Those are things that aren’t necessarily front of mind for guys when they go. Car shopping. I’ve heard it said before that a lot of us men and women, the first thing we do when we buy a [00:10:00] car is we buy with our eyes. We’ll put a pin in that and talk about it a little bit more later.

Yeah. Aesthetics is like, I think, where we both branch from and go, do I like the way it looks or not? The rest of this stuff becomes a little bit auxiliary to your point, and it becomes a lifestyle choice, right? Yeah. The guy wants the horse power and the whatever, and yeah. You’re looking at other parts of it.

You started writing at a time, you know, in the, in the early two thousands when a lot of things were changing in the world of car seats and ergonomics and things like that, and just to bring up a, a factoid in the German car, world cup holders were really rare, even to that point because in Germany there were laws that said you couldn’t have those sorts of things in the car, so adding them in for the US market was awkward and clumsy and so they just did it.

Challenge do it. We’ve evolved. Mm-hmm. In the way we buy. In the same way that the manufacturers have evolved to keep up with the way we buy. So it’s a, it’s a little bit of a tug of war there, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And whenever there’s an innovation that takes place, there is a push pull between the [00:11:00] consumer and the manufacturer.

You know, I say, I want a nice cup holder. I want a double stroller to fit in the trunk, or whatever. I don’t think it’s a matter of the manufacturer not wanting to make it happen. It just tends to not get listened to. At least back in the day. It wasn’t listened to as much just because it wasn’t front of mind.

So in a way, when women start writing about cars, it starts creating that change and the manufacturers go, oh, to your earlier point, I didn’t know that was a thing, but now I know it’s a thing. So let’s see what we can do to bring it to life. It’s a very symbiotic process, I think more than adversarial, and it probably helps more as time progressed in the history of the automobile.

Now, in modern day, there’s more women also that are in the room and the automotive manufacturers, right, so they can have a say. But 50 years ago or whatever, all the men in their suits at Ford, there were no other women there. They weren’t. Giving opinions. Right? They didn’t care. They only saw it from, you know, their perspective.[00:12:00]

You’re so absolutely right and women in the room has affected a lot more than just some basic creature comfort. You hit the nail on the head when someone is in the room who’s been taking her kids to practice and sitting in the parking lot for an hour and a half at a time while the kid goes and does gymnastics or baseball or whatever.

That’s a different way of being in a car. And the person in the room can articulate that and help people understand why it’s important to have some additional features that would make that way a little more comfortable. Definitely. For sure. If we go back and look at the articles on a Girl’s Guide to Cars, and I’ve read a few myself and I think they’re quite refreshing because it, it is that different outlook on things.

I do get slightly tired of the standard industry rags where it’s this shootout competition and drag race and you know, what’s your lap time at the Neber gr I’m like, I don’t really care anymore. What? They’re all getting beat by Teslas anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Right. So it’s true. When I read your guys’ articles, I do see that other perspective and then I start to [00:13:00] wonder what are some of the most important topics that you guys are covering?

You know, your audience isn’t me, it’s Tanya and other women out there. So what are those pillars that you’re trying to focus in on? A massive interest is occurring with electric cars and electric vehicles, and a lot of people are wondering things like, when are we gonna see three row SUV EVs? So EVs are huge.

Wanting to feel better about your car purchase from an environmental standpoint is. A huge topic. I think another huge topic is driver safety features and systems, driver assist systems. How do those work? Are they standard? And what does standard even mean these days? A car with standard X, Y, Z features meant that that car just came with it and now we have all these different trim levels and what’s standard on this Nissan Leaf is gonna be different than what’s standard on that Nissan Leaf sl.

What am I getting when I buy a [00:14:00] certain trim level of a car? Am I getting those safety features? Yeah, unfortunately it becomes a bunch of badge engineering and alphabet soup, right, when you get down to it sometimes. Absolutely. And we work really hard and I think it makes our articles. More understandable and more readable and more functional because we take a lot of the capital letters out, kind of normalize A lot of one manufacturer might use one acronym for say, blind spot mitigation.

So we just say it’s a blind spot management system. It kind of creates a normalized language. So when you’re reading the article about this car and the article about that car, you can compare terms and know that we’re talking about the same thing. I think you’ll have a lot of content in this subject area for a while because if you’ve heard how BMW is piloting subscription features for like heated seats, you know, and and adaptive headlights, high beam headlights.

So now you’re gonna have your audience [00:15:00] confused of like, so what’s in my car? There’s heated seats, but I can’t use them. I have to cave for them. I had it last month, why don’t I have it this month? And what is the thing? And I think that’s such a good point, Tanya. And I didn’t even think about going forward, kind of managing your features on a regular basis.

I had this and now I don’t, or I want this and how do I keep it? And that’s gonna be an interesting experiment to keep track of. There’s a question about whether or not American consumers will tolerate that. We’ll have to see. We already have 10,000 subscriptions to everything else, right? And, and we talked about this on our drive-through episode, and part of it has to do with the economics of building a card.

To your point about those trim levels, if you think about BMW’s from a strategy perspective, it makes sense. They build one car with all the features and then you decide what you want rather than building 16. Mm-hmm. Trim levels and you don’t know what you’re getting to your point, so you just go, right, I bought an M three [00:16:00] and it comes with everything and I turn on and off.

A la carte. What I want today, I want heated seats for three months. I pay an extra two bucks. When I don’t, I turn ’em off. I mean, it’s silly from a manufacturing perspective, I totally get it because unfortunately the bean counters are in charge. Right. And we’ve learned. We’ve learned that we are all a lot more trainable about that than we thought.

Right? A hundred percent. I hate to say it, I hate to say it, but I will. This actually dovetails into a really great question on this show. We have a suber called, what Should I Buy? You know, we have shopping criteria. Somebody comes to the table and says, I wanna buy a station wagon. And a panel of us get together and we kind of chew on the idea until we come up as suggestions that that person likes.

We’ve done collector cars, we’ve done Italian cars, we’ve done ugly cars, all sorts of things. So I started thinking about it. And if we were to set one up for a girl’s guide to cars, what would be the top five things that women look for when they’re buying a new or used vehicle that let’s say we could use in a, what should I buy episode?

[00:17:00] That’s a great question. And I think it’s, it’s a little tough to answer because it’s like painting and broad strokes by and large women. Tend to like cars with light interiors, they tend to like large storage areas for their purse, like in a center console. They want those safety systems as I mentioned earlier.

They want to not be shamed for liking a car because of its color. You know, we were talking about that a minute ago. You know, you wanna, you wanna like what you see, you wanna like what you look at, you wanna come out to your car and you wanna feel proud and excited to drive it. So those are some, some main features.

But I do think that women more and more are really excited about some luxurious details and manufacturers that haven’t always been paying attention to that before. And I think EVs are giving some manufacturers an opportunity to, to integrate some of those things. You know, we’re seeing little crystal bezel and features that are just really luxurious to the touch and not feeling plasticy.

I think those are some of the big pieces [00:18:00] for the ladies out there. So, pivoting off that. Are there brands that you’re seeing that cater more towards women or, or which of those brands would you say are giving those extra features that women are really gravitating towards? I wanna call back what you said earlier.

There are a lot more brands that have women in executive positions, chief officer positions, that just kind of bring the whole entire brand on board. One of the interesting product launches we saw was Infinity did a marketing campaign with their S U V, where they basically built this whole story around Claire and Claire live life like Claire, you know, and they really looked at the life of a woman who wanted to drive a luxurious.

Car. Where did she live? Where did she go? What did she do? And you know, Kate Hudson was at the forefront of that marketing campaign. So Infinity has been really dialed in. I would say Genesis is really an up and comer with that too. I’ve tested a few [00:19:00] of their vehicles now. I had the GV 70, and then I went on the launch for the Electrified G 80, and I loved how adjustable everything in the car was.

I loved that they were. Just making every surface feel great, not skimping on things. They have features like ambient noise that makes you just feel like you’re at the spa in Barry Zen. These are coming from brands that maybe haven’t focused on that before. Someone had mentioned Volvo, I think Volvo has always been very attentive to women, and part of that is because they’re so dialed into safety, so they wanna make sure that anybody in the car is having a quality experience.

And they’ve included women in that historically. So everyone’s getting a lot more on board and are very excited to hear feedback from our reviews, from our test drives, what did we like, what worked, what didn’t work? I love that. It’s making me very happy to say that there’s not just this brand or that brand, that it’s a more sweeping and inclusive feeling [00:20:00] from just about everybody.

And I think the interior comments are even more important today as. Electric vehicles kind of removed a lot of things from the consoles and whatnot. So there’s a lot more room now for the designers to do different things that haven’t been done in the past. And it’s funny because, oh man, 10, 15 years ago now, it was funny, there was a young lady I knew and she actually said, That when she went to go buy a car, she didn’t actually care what it looked like on the outside because she was spending all of her time looking at it from the inside.

So it was very important to her when she was testing different cars that the interior was aesthetically pleasing and like you’ve been saying, has all whatever comforts and, and adjustability that they need. And so now like full circle, it’s like she would probably still have that today, but even have even more choices for prettier interiors and things like that.

There’s, there’s market now for that area. I love that you said that Tanya. I’m in the midst. I’m having a moment right now [00:21:00] of, and the market is too, of recognizing that people don’t necessarily want what I call the Jetsons car. They don’t necessarily want that minimal spacey, weird looking. Ev and I went on the launch for the, as I mentioned that Genesis, the electrified G 80, and one of the things that they were talking about is that, It’s essentially, it is the G 80 and it’s just got the electric powertrain, right?

There’s no difference in the interior between the electrified G 80 and a regular one. And they were saying that they didn’t feel like they really had any competition in that department at this time. Most EVs in terms of their interior look and feel, they all were kind of going in this EV direction. And Genesis was like, yeah, but what about people who don’t want that?

We’re gonna talk to them. So you’ve been reading my mind this whole time, cuz I was thinking that myself, and I’ve commented more than once. My biggest issue with EVs is that you sit inside them and they all feel like an IKEA [00:22:00] showroom. They’re extremely utilitarian and very simple and they lack the creature comforts that we’ve gotten used to.

To your point. Yeah. We’ve also said that it was gonna take time for the major manufacturers, especially the luxury manufacturers to catch up. So Genesis? Mm-hmm. Being the luxury arm of Hyundai, but then you have right. Audi and Mercedes coming to the table with, let’s call them more normal looking cars as well.

Yeah. What’s the difference between the Tron GT and let’s say the RS seven? They’re very similar cars when you come down to it or, or you know, the Tacan or anything like that. So you get inside the Audi and you feel like you’re in an Audi, you don’t feel like suddenly you stepped into, I hate to say like a Nissan Leaf, something that’s much simpler.

You’re gonna see a lot more of that. To your point, people are gonna turn away from this. Simplicity factor, and they don’t want cars that look funky. They want something looks classy and refined. Yeah, and I think that a major point there too, is the fact that we now have battery power and the range that’s extended that [00:23:00] now we don’t necessarily have to lighten everything up.

Kinda like, well, we have a little bit more power. So now you can have some of these other things that we thought we had to take out. I mean, early on with EVs, it was absolutely a necessity to try to. Kind of eliminate all this stuff that was gonna suck the battery power. And now you know, you can go 280 miles on a charge.

So maybe you can have some of those heavier weighted knobs that feel nice to turn and, and all this. And you don’t have to rely so much on just a touch screen. And what we don’t wanna end up though is with a 9,000 pound plus Hummer, that’s the scary part of that information. It says you, Eric says you.

Maybe I totally want that underlying here, and we’ve mentioned some of these manufacturers, there’s two in particular that have stuck out to me over the years that not only do they have women in the boardroom, but they have all female design teams. And those clock in at Volvo. And at Hyundai. Hyundai I, again, being the [00:24:00] parent company of Genesis, to Tanya’s point earlier about, are there automotive brands that cater more to women, that add some more of those features that you guys are looking for?

I think those are two in my mind that really stick out. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I’m excited. I’m so excited about that because. I think automotive is really good at the rising tide lifts all boats. And I also think it’s fair to say that what women want men want too. You just don’t always wanna say it out loud in front of your friends maybe.

But I will say that our readership is 35% male. You know, the things that we think guys don’t want, turns out that maybe they do or they will take that in addition to the horsepower and the torque and the other things, I want a cup holder also. I want my big gulp too. Are you seeing a trend with your audience at all in terms of what type of car you’re talking about that is it convertible coops, the sedans, [00:25:00] SUVs?

Are there anybody out there still want a wagon? No. Much to my much to my heartbreak. I know I love a wagon. I was a wagon owner. I had a SOB 95 wagon that I just loved until she broke my heart. SUVs, SUVs. All day long or the vast majority of what our readers are looking for. And so I think because SUVs have kind of replaced the minivan as the family car van life forever, van Life forever, if you don’t have a station wagon, You should have a van.

You should. You should, but you’re not. You’re not gonna, nobody’s doing that. You know, it was funny, I’d just gone on vacation to Italy and I loved how many station wagons there were. This is station wagon, heaven. I love it. All brands. Yep. Little ones, big ones. I was just like, ah, for some reason, not meant to be here.

As smart as it is, as great [00:26:00] as it is, it just, they can’t get traction and keep it with the exception of the Outback. That’s true. You tell me. I don’t know the last, uh, wagon standing. Yeah, that’s gonna be their slogan. It’s Subaru for the next 10 years, there’s always gonna be a wagon. We always have the wagon.

We always have the wagon. Are you differentiating at all between SUVs and this hot new trend that’s been the last couple years of the compact crossover SUVs? Have you seen a difference yet, or are people gravitating one? Or is it just too early to tell? Don’t have the data? I think it’s too early to tell.

You know what I will say, I think people don’t always attach to those designations. You can be like, Ooh, that’s a compact crossover, and they’re like, why? It’s just a small S U v. I think. Yes, people are liking those. To a certain degree more than they’re gonna buy a small sedan. Yeah, they’re gonna buy that.

I don’t know that people are consciously thinking, gosh, I really need something that’s smaller than my C R V, [00:27:00] but bigger than my Corvette. You know? I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. I just feel like sometimes manufacturers. Do tend to throw something out there and see if it sticks. I have to say that when I first started writing, I came to automotive writing at the dawn of the crossover.

So it was the Chrysler Pacifico is just coming out and the Ford Freestyle, if you remember that. It was kind of this weird time where people are like, is it a wagon? Is it a truck? What is it? Is it a S U V? The language merges and people start shopping just for what it is that they need. Definitely. And I think if you’ve been watching Eric’s facial expressions, you know his opinion of compact crossovers.

Tell me, tell me Eric. We use all these fancy words to say hatchback with a six inch lift, cuz that’s all it is. You take a VW Golf and put it on stilts and that’s it. I don’t get it. But you know, if you call it an all road, then somehow it doesn’t. Do Well, I don’t know. [00:28:00] I hear you. I might even be on board.

I’ve got a pit stop question for you. Okay. It’s a derivative of other ones, but it’s really important in the context of this conversation. There is one vehicle on this planet that most people agree is probably like the worst car, ugliest car, whatever, and that’s. The Pontiac, Aztec, some of us hold this vehicle in high regard.

It was ahead of its time. There’s all these arguments that can be made back and forth, so whether you love it or you hate it, but I’ve been asking this question lately, which is if the Aztec, if you look at all the things that it came with as one of the early crossover SUVs, right, came out in 2000. Mm-hmm.

Even before you started writing. If it was introduced today, would it be better accepted? I’m gonna think out loud about this and I might ask you a question back. Sure. I’m not entirely sure because I don’t see a whole lot of Honda elements still out there as glorious a fan following as they had. People think they want a [00:29:00] thing sometimes when they’re given that thing that will manifest all their camping, hiking dreams.

They might not actually wind up using it for that. When push comes to shove and they’re thinking about buying a vehicle that will do those things, they don’t do it. Cuz they’re like, oh, I maybe I’m not actually gonna go hiking. Maybe I’m not gonna go skiing as much as I thought maybe. So that’s me thinking out loud about it.

So let me ask you this question since you said that then why the SUV craze? Because if we’re talking about people, space and cargo space and family space, the wagon in the van are smarter choices if you don’t live in an area where it snows. Six feet a year or something like that, you need to charge through that.

What are you doing carrying around all that extra drive, train and the bulk. And a lot of SUVs aren’t that roomy inside. There’s very few of them that offer third row that aren’t the size of a suburban or an expedition. You know, the Durango is an exception or now I guess the, the Wagoner or whatever you wanna call it.

Yeah. So I guess the same question applies to those folks. Why are [00:30:00] you buying that S U V if what you’re looking for is people space? I will say that I think that the SUV is popular because there’s the inclement weather fear that people buy into with the S U V, I think the S U V, you can get people in there and if you are carrying kids around, you’re gonna have stuff.

So your point is not lost on me that, you know, there are wagons, there are hatchbacks, there are cars that can do the same, but if you’re gonna spur of the moment, not go camping, but maybe you’re gonna invite your kids’ baseball team to pizza after the game, and some of those kids don’t have a ride or their parents are gonna go do other things, so can you, blah, blah, blah.

There’s more of the people moving factor that I think plays into it. And again, the van, hands down, right? You have the deep well in the cargo area of a minivan that you don’t have in an S U V that. Can bring all the gear and all that. It’s not even that. There’s one factor that finally got my wife to cross the bridge to Van [00:31:00] Life and we should have done it years ago.

Cause she was a hatchback girl. Then she went to wagons, then she got her first S U V and she really didn’t like it and we finally got a van. And what did it. The one thing that a van still has over every other vehicle, cuz it already has third row, it already has the deep well mm-hmm. From luggage. Mm-hmm.

All the creature comfort. Some of ’em have vacuum cleaners in ’em. Right. They got everything you can think of what they have over all other vehicles, especially people movers are sliding side doors and with kids in and, and out. That’s, I don’t care what s u v you have and how cool it is, nothing beats those sliding doors.

They’re amazing. It’s so funny you talk about that. Scotty and I were talking about that, like, especially at the dawn of the crossover, like that was this big opportunity to just kind of normalize sliding doors. Why did that not happen? You know, you’re, you’re putting vacuums in the car, you can put.

Refrigerators in the car. You can certainly put a mechanism to slide the door open and closed [00:32:00] for a little while. I think, was it the Mazda five that did that? It was kind of that little mini minivan and I thought for sure, I’m like, oh, they’re onto something. This is gonna happen. This is gonna be a thing.

And I’m on board with you, Eric. I agree. I think the sliding door is the godsend. I don’t know why. It’s just relegated to minivan life. Only since we’re talking about that we didn’t answer the Aztec question and that’s okay. We shouldn’t, we’re just gonna leave it there. No, I totally wanna answer that. I totally wanna answer that, by the way, cuz I was thinking out loud.

Right. So I will say if the Aztec were invented or brought back to life today, given that there are a lot of people looking at Van Life and working remotely, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it would be a hit. Is that edgy? Yeah. No, and edgy is the right word because we are back in a time in car design where angular is the answer.

You’re so right. That’s what I was gonna, I was gonna go with a yes also because all those sharp, [00:33:00] weird lines fit in today. Absolutely where they felt out of place back then. Absolutely. Everything in the early two thousands was still a carryover from the nineties. Very marshmallowy, very round. The Aztec came at a time where it was like, what?

I don’t get it. By the way, a little bit of trivia. The same guy that designed the Aztec is the guy that designed the C seven Corvette. So just do the math on that. Alright. You know, one was during a fever dream, the other wasn’t. You know, we’ve been skirting around this other, I don’t wanna call it issue, but there’s this moniker that was bestowed upon certain cars over the last hundred years, and that’s, The mom mobile.

Right. And maybe that’s the problem with minivans. That’s the stigma that’s attached to them is that they’re a mom mobile. Right. Just like the Outback could be a mom mobile or, or whatever. Have you. Does that concept still exist today in 2022? Is there a new mom mobile out [00:34:00] there? I know there’s probably a couple that Tanya could offer up as suggestions.

Oh, Tanya, are you going there? Do you want me to go to the ID buzz as a mom mobile? I think so. I think that’s a number one candidate for the next generation of mom mobile. I, I don’t know how would’ve chosen that, but I wouldn’t rule it out. I mean, it’s electric. It carries people. The thing about the ID buzz, and it’s something that we’re seeing with a lot of brands, right?

This kind of revival of their heritage models, right? Broncos, you can go on and on and on. The Id buzz, the thing that makes it maybe more palatable and less mom mobile is the fact that it has this treasured past as the microbus. You think surfers, you think road tripping, it doesn’t really necessarily evoke this whole mom mobile stigma.

That being said, when we write now, when we write now, W R I T E. Yes. Yes. When we do, when we do that about cars that [00:35:00] formerly would’ve been considered Mom mobiles typically just refer to them as family cars because fundamentally it might be the mom’s car during the week, but dads certainly are driving everybody around on the weekend.

Or moms and moms and dads and dads and whatever. So it’s a more utilitarian title and not quite as mom shaming as mom mobile, but you’re absolutely right. I mean, there was. Certainly a point in time in which the mom mobile was kind of this very unsexy tag that really gave women pause about when they went to go and purchase a minivan.

I think there might be less of that now, but it certainly would explain the popularity of the S U V because the S U V seems a little more individualistic and rugged and not quite so momish, I think you hit on something, Eric, that I’d never really thought about before until you just Oh, until you just said it now.

Cause I don’t think about minivans, so I’ve never needed to think so in depth about them. [00:36:00] The stigma, so the first minivan came out in the mid eighties, right? The Dodge Caravan. It’s saved Chrysler. Yes. That lovely square. Yes. Classic Dodge Caravan, the eighties. I mean, that was an interesting time for women in the workforce and everything, and you were starting to see them want careers and climb the ladder and things like that.

So to say, go buy this mom mobile. It would’ve been off-putting, because I did have a professor who would’ve been out of college. First job in that timeframe, had gotten married, was starting to have kids. Her husband had suggested. Back then, oh, you should get a minivan, get rid of your B M W, whatever she had.

And her answer was basically, hell no, I will never have a minivan. Don’t put that on me. So I’m wondering, you know, maybe there was a bit of that, like the career woman didn’t wanna be put down in that way with the minivan on. Yeah, that’s held the minivan back. I want you to write that [00:37:00] article for me. That is brilliant.

I love that what she’s saying is we need to elevate the minivan now. It needs to have a resurgence, a rebirth, a renaissance. You know, I think that that has been tried. Remember Toyota had their whole swagger wagon campaign for the Sienna for a long time, and Yeah, but that’s, that’s so lame though. Yeah, I know.

They gotta take the top gear approach. Like they always said, the fastest car in Britain is a Ford Transit van. Boom. Done. And then you get everybody excited about it. I really, I’m really enjoying that line of thinking, Tanya, that really the minivan showed that. The career woman was doing something other than just being the career woman, or not being able to have the career woman car, but also have the minivan, which wasn’t as compelling and sexy and great and all those things.

This is the what happened to the sliding doors. It would all started had it [00:38:00] not been stigmatized with Mom Mobile, we’d all have sliding doors. Now we know. Now we know. I mean, I’ll say this. I have no shame in driving my wife’s van. Okay. Stop right there though. You just said that you have no shame in driving your wife’s van.

Why isn’t it your van Eric? Why isn’t it your van? Our van? Yeah. You should say our van. Our van. The driving our van, you should say. So I’m gonna put it this way. We have a lot of cars and there are definitely cars that are my cars. And then she is territorial about her cars. The van is hers and she refers to it as her car.

So I refer to it as her car as well. That being said, I have no shame in driving her minivan. And I tell you what, it’s a Pacifica hybrid. I will embarrass some people at traffic lights. I have fun with that thing because it puts all the power to the ground immediately. Nice. And then it’s got. [00:39:00] 330 horse to back it up.

I mean, you get that bread box moving it, it alls ass, right. I mean there’s no better way to put it. I love it. I love it. I love those kind of like those sleeper things and I sleeper and for the guys that are listening, I mean you gotta try some other cars cuz there’s some fantastic stuff out there. I’m with you guys.

I brought up the whole mom mobile concept because you know, there’s been other cars too, like sports cars that have been set over the years that, well like the Camaro was really designed for women. If you’re a guy and you want a muscle car, you buy a Mustang and you look at the statistics and more women bought Mustangs than men did.

Oh, interesting. All that nonsense for me goes out the window. I think cars are asexual, but I think it goes back to that thing we were talking about. When we buy cars, we buy with our eyes. Right? It’s all about the aesthetic. Mm-hmm. I’ve also heard it using the metaphor that cars are like women’s shoes.

Because there aren’t a lot of diversity in men’s shoes. It’s like black shoe, brown shoe lace up, shoe slip on shoe, right? It’s pretty basic, but when you look at women’s shoes, handcrafted, they evoke [00:40:00] emotion. They’re used for different purposes. Maybe you’re going to a wedding or a graduation, or you’re going to work or you’re going camping.

You know, there’s like 50 million different styles and the same as true of carbs. It makes me wonder, using one of our all-time favorite pit stop questions, Sarah Uhoh, is there a. Sexiest car of all time for women, does that even exist? Is that how cars are viewed, like from your perspective? You know, that’s a good question and, and again, it’s, it’s kind of getting into that dangerous territory of painting and broad strokes.

So I don’t know that there’s a fundamentally hands down, all women thinks this car is sexy type of car. I can tell you what I think is a sexy car. I would say that the Mercedes s sls A mg,

we laugh because Tanya loves Benz’s. So you guys are a good car. No, I have, I have, I’ve said that car multiple times. [00:41:00] No way. I love it. It’s got everything. It’s all of the pieces. It’s exotic, there’s touches of color, there’s. Just a beast of an engine. There’s going doors. I mean, oh my God. That’s pretty much usually how I go through the, the spiel too.

Yeah. Maybe the ladies do have something in common. I will say, I was thinking about this, A sexy car guys. Is a clean car. Can I get an Amen? Yes. Can I get an Amen? Those cars that look like someone’s been living in it for 30 years. Oh, or take your cup outta the cup holder. Yeah. I’m not even gonna get into details, but yeah.

So speaking of details and detailing, do you guys cover car care and detailing and maintenance and things like that as part of a girls’ guide to cars? We do. We have quite a few [00:42:00] posts regularly about caring for your car. One of the things that we always advocate for is like on Mother’s Day, a great Mother’s Day gift is to go and get the mother of your child’s.

Car washed and detailed cuz it’s just such a nice feeling to come out to your car and have everything tidy and it wasn’t a chore that you had to put on your own plate to do. Some of our most red posts are car care posts and how to buy tires, tire maintenance. When do you need new tires? Those posts are incredibly popular too.

They consistently do really well for us. Our issue like so many other outlets is always just can we create more content more regularly for those types of posts. But moving into each season, we do usually say how to get your car ready for like now how to get it ready for fall and winter. What do you need to take out of your car that you may have had in there for the summer that you won’t need for the winter?

And what do you need to put in there? Always fill up windshield wiper fluid. Always, always, always, always check your tire tread, [00:43:00] that sort of thing. Season to season, we have different needs. Your other recommendation for Mother’s Day, it’s like a spa day for the car. So you gotta think about it from that perspective again.

I think I’ve just found my two new writers.

I love it. I love it. So if we go back to the question of aesthetics, and again, you can answer this personally, you don’t have to generalize for the larger female population, but is there that birkenstock of cars, you know, that ugliest car of all time and the Aztec doesn’t count? We’ve already talked about it.

Ah, well, you know, it’s funny because I think the car that I think is one of the ugliest is also such a gateway car. For modern vehicles, and I hate to name it because it’s kind of now maybe getting a little retro. Cool. But I’m gonna say it. The A m C eagle sedan, it is not Oh, from way back in the day.

Yeah. Did you, [00:44:00] oh, sorry. Did you, did you mean like something? Oh, no, no, no. All time. Okay. Of all time. All time. Cause that, that’s a great call. And a lot of people forget about that. That was one of the last AMCs before they were completely absorbed into Chrysler and Jeep. So it’s pretty cool you bring that up.

In Colorado, they were really popular because they were four wheel drive and you know, they had the ground clearance, so you didn’t have to buy a Jeep or a scout or a wagoneers. You could get this cute little sedan. And then it was like, what is it cute? I don’t. I don’t know. It’s kind of weird and the dimensions are kind of strange and, and that brown color is so nice and that brown color and my friend had one and it had plaid seats and it was just a visual cornucopia of weirdness.

I have to give it props for laying the foundation for Subaru. I mean, I don’t know that, I don’t know that we can make a definitive connection that Subaru looked at that and said, we’re gonna do that. [00:45:00] But it layed a trail and with consumers that, oh, you can have this kind of car and, and it actually would really work really well.

It was yet another great idea that maybe just couldn’t last through the market doing what it was doing. So here’s another pit stop question for you as we lead into our final segment. If there was one lady from the automotive world, whether it’s industry, whether it’s from the aftermarket or from the motor sports world, whatever, who would you like to sit down and have a glass of wine with and and discuss cars?

Is there somebody on your list, like one of your female heroes? Oh, just one. I mean, give me a list then. Well, okay, so I grew up learning about Michelle Mutton, who drove Audi up the Pikes Peak Hill climb. I just really admire her and I just think she was such a trailblazer, pardon in the pun, but she had sass, she had confidence.

She was a hell of a driver. [00:46:00] And of course, to do it in that car, Is just, what a story. You know, there’s, there’s a woman who is still writing and very active, and her name is Sue Mead and she’s always written from an off-roading perspective. She’s a wonderful human being and an incredible off-road. She has been in the off-roading Hall of fame as a journalist, but she’s yet another person who’s lifting everybody with her as she goes.

And she recently participated in one of the first all woman rally races. Well, she didn’t participate, but she supported racers in an all woman rally race in Saudi Arabia called the Rally Jamil. And she’s just incredible and she’s. Friendly and wonderful and so inspirational because she started her writing career.

I think she said she was around 40 when she started. She’s very inspirational to me. Yeah, those are two. Those are two that I can think of [00:47:00] off the top of my head. Speaking of motor sports again, so how do we engage or invite more women into motor sports? How do we do that through your articles? Or are you guys leaning in that direction at all?

How do we put more women in the seats? I feel a bit that that is a community mandate. It starts with people being willing to talk to us and bring us in and teach us, you know, we wanna teach our readers. We want to pass that passion on. So when we find a writer like Annika, for example, you know, she’s.

Super excited and very enthusiastic, and you can read that in her writing. And we want to be able to answer the questions. And I think oftentimes motor sports can feel so intimidating because I don’t know about horsepower, I don’t know about torque. I don’t know. Displacement and gear ratios and all these things that you think you have to know in order to enjoy it.

And fundamentally, to bring more people to motor sports, [00:48:00] it’s letting them know that you don’t have to have that technical knowledge. You have to be excited about a racer. You have to like maybe the smell of the track when you get out there and you can smell the exhaust or the tires. It’s making people understand, not unlike bringing women to cars, it’s okay to like, A red leather interior.

Say, you know what, it’s okay to like this for the driver. It’s okay to like this because you wanna go and sit out on a Saturday afternoon with your family and see what happens. You don’t have to know anything technical, anything specific. Other than that, like a lot of things, it’s just kind of about making people feel welcome and that whatever it is that they like about that particular motorsport, that that’s enough.

So the future of a girls’ guide to cars are, is there ways people can help? You know, they’re hearing about this, they’re getting excited, they wanna, you know, help the cause. Or do you guys do anything to help promote charity events or [00:49:00] fundraising or things like that? On the flip side, both ways. Helping?

Yeah. You know one of the things that Scotty is great at bringing people in. She really embraces if you love cars, but maybe you don’t know how to write about cars, we can help you with that. We are happy to help you with that. So let’s talk about if this is something that interests you and that you can passionately engage in and write about for our readers.

So in joining the cause of bringing more people to Motorsport, go to a girls’ guide to cars and read the articles that are there. We are always working to attend races and create more content about those particular events. Oftentimes we just don’t have the people. If you are showing us that this is something that’s important to you by reading what’s there asking questions, this is a great opportunity for me to know that there are people that wanna read about it.

So, you know, just have me on here a lot more. Yes. Shameless self promotions. Shameless [00:50:00] self promotion. Yeah. We’ve got a, what should I buy? Episode with your name all over it. Yeah, for sure. Well, and you know, I, you know, oftentimes people just don’t even, I, I don’t know how much people wanna read about certain things, so being here really is helpful for me to know that there is an audience out there who wants to read from our perspective about different races and different rallies and different kinds of Motorsport events.

Absolutely. And we’ve had the very good fortune of meeting a lot of women in motorsports from, you know, the McReynolds sisters who are in motocross. To Lynn St. James, and everybody in between where we want to capture those stories. We wanna get people to understand and recognize that it’s not just a bunch of dudes in the paddock.

Mm-hmm. Like many people have said, when we talk about diversity in the paddock, which goes beyond gender, right? And, and race, religion, color, and everything else. If you don’t see yourself there, you know that reflection, Absolut, as an example, you don’t feel like you belong there. And so, It’s difficult, I think, [00:51:00] for diversity in general in motor sports to say, how do we break those walls down?

How do we make it more inviting? And I think you guys are making the right steps in the right direction, wanting to be there, going there, having people like Annika and Elizabeth who writes motor sports articles for Gillick and things like that. Being present, being there. And one thing I wanna remind the women listeners that are listening to this episode is everyone is welcome.

That’s the one thing that we are always championing here at gtm, at Grandeur Motorsports, is that Motorsports enthusiasm has no boundary. If you get excited about motorcycle racing or drag racing, or go-karting, or maybe it’s, you know, world challenge racing with SRO or whatever, have you go to those events, Absolutely.

Not only are you satisfying your curiosity, you’re helping to perpetuate motorsport because as the fans have turned to, well, I could just watch it later on my D V R and on tv. Mm-hmm. That whole realness of racing has left when you look around the grand stands and they’re half empty. So being there is part of [00:52:00] it.

And that then again, you see yourself there and now other people see themselves there as well, and that’s really, really important. So we always wanna remind people of that and bestow that upon them. We do have a series called What Drives Her on A Girls’ Guide to Cars, and we interview women who own their own garages.

We interview women who run race tracks. We interview. Executives. So it is an opportunity if you’re interested to know and understand just how many people send that same message. Just come, just come. You’re welcome. We want you here. That certainly solidifies that message for us. I think what you guys are doing is really important in, you know, yes, we were talking about the motor sports and all that, cuz obviously we care about getting, just in general, the more people that are engaged in the sport will keep it alive for years to come.

But just even in everyday life, cars have always been, boys play with cars and girls play. You know what I mean? So like that there’s been that ingrain and so as you get older and suddenly you [00:53:00] have your first car and you need to go buy your first car, you are treated a certain way when you walk into the dealership or into the mechanic shop to fix your car.

So, you know, by you all creating these articles that are helping to explain how to go do this and how to go to that and what to look for, you’re empowering women to feel more confident. To go to these traditionally male dominated, if you will, areas. Right. Environments. Environments. Thank you. Exactly. And so I think that’s really important, you know, not just motorsports, but just everyday life, what you guys are doing and, and these articles that you’re sharing.

Thank you. It’s so validating to hear that, and it’s validating all the time when we have the numbers that we see of people reading our articles, but the idea of cars on your terms, it’s so true. And, and it’s okay. You know, it is empowering to know that the things that are important to you, Are valid, whether or not they’re valid to the dealership or whatever other environment you’re in, in the car life.

I will say this, I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by [00:54:00] strong women in my life, and hopefully my daughters will be that way as well. Come, there is nothing more entertaining than watching either my mother, my sister, or my wife go to a dealership and buy a car. I don’t have to say a word and stand back and just watch the fireworks go because all three of them coming from, you know, either being in the car world, racing world, or exposed to it, they got their guns out when they go to go buy something.

And it is just hilarious. And I mean, I’ve seen some sales reps be like, oh my goodness. And I’m like, you don’t mess with these ladies. I love it. I love it. I, I detect a podcast. Tips, tips and tricks. My mom’s favorite. Her staple is she walks in the door and asks, does it come into manual? And they say, excuse me ma’am, did you say.

Manual as in transmission. She goes, yes. Does it come in a manual? And they inevitably say no, and she turns around and walks out the door and leaves. Her reasoning is, I never [00:55:00] learned how to drive an automatic. That’s a riot. So, I mean, it’s just like, it just lay it out there. She’s like, we’re not gonna waste time at all.

Oh, I love it. I love it. We focused a lot on a girls’ guide to cars, and we didn’t talk about your journey as a journalist and coming into the automotive world. So I wanna wrap that up in a single question. Oh. So if a young lady came up to you, Sarah, and said, I wanna do what you do, I wanna write about cars, I wanna do this kind of job, what would you tell them?

What steps would you tell them to take? What lessons have you learned that you could pass on to these young ladies that might be interested in following your career path? First, I would say we can do it together. There are so many people in this business who are willing to help other people, so fundamentally, always ask.

Ask the question, ask for help. Make it known what you wanna do. That’s first. Second, and these seem like esoteric sort of things, but one of the most difficult [00:56:00] things I think it is to learn in this business and, and in a lot of them in many ways, one thing that I am working with my writers with quite a bit is owning your expertise.

Whatever level that’s at. As women, we tend to say things like, well, I kind of think this, and it might be that. And so and so said, this is a great car. And I tend to agree. No, you have a knowledge base, you are an expert and people are coming to you for this information. Own it. Talk confidently, be brave. We will help you do this.

It’s a matter of learning how to know that, you know, enough kind of that classic imposter syndrome thing that we all fight from time to time. But I think young women particularly can fall victim to it and not even wanna start something because they feel like they don’t belong. So the first thing they need to do is say that this is a thing that they wanna do, and find the people who [00:57:00] are gonna wanna help them in that journey cuz they’re everywhere.

Sarah, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered thus far? Oh my gosh. This has been such a wonderful experience and I hope you’ll have me back. And in the meantime, you can find me at our website at Girls guide to cars.com. Again, we’re on Pinterest, we’re on Instagram, we’re on YouTube at a girls guide to cars.com.

We have lots of videos and articles everywhere, just waiting for you to come read them and come see us. A girls guide to cars, their mission to empower women to be smarter, happier car owners. Women think about cars differently than men, so why should they talk about them? Read about them and evaluate them the same way men do.

A girls Guide to Cars brings a natural and engaged conversation about cars to you pairing it with empowering information, tactics, and strategies to ensure you make a smart and comfortable decision. They also empower the auto industry to develop a closer, more meaningful relationship with their female customers.

To learn more about [00:58:00] a girls’ guide to cars, be sure to log onto www.agirlsguidetocars.com and that’s Girls With an S. Or follow them on social at a Girls Guide to Cars on Facebook and Pinterest at a Girls Guide to the Number two cars on Instagram at Girls Guide to Cars on Twitter and their YouTube channel.

Scotty, she buys cars, so we can’t thank you enough, Sarah, for coming on the show, sharing with our audience the story behind a Girls Guide to cars and helping us get the message out there to this ever-growing audience, males and females alike, and we really do appreciate everything you’re doing to bring a whole new perspective, a whole different set of eyes.

Again, giving that unique perspective from behind your steering wheel. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve loved every minute of it, and I hope to be back soon. Definitely. We can’t wait to have you on another episode. Thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you both too, and I hope you have a great rest of your night.

This was such [00:59:00] a blast. Thank you. Thank you. You too. Bye bye.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call our text at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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