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Painting Speed: Samantha Zimmermann’s Journey into Hyper-realism

March 21, 2023

When Samantha Zimmermann first chased her childhood sweetheart Michael around the playground, she couldn’t have known she was also chasing the beginning of a lifelong love affair – with motorsports, with art, and with the stories that live at the intersection of both.

Today, Zimmermann is a fine artist specializing in hyper-realistic automotive and motorsport paintings. Her work captures not just the lines and liveries of iconic race cars, but the emotion, energy, and history that surround them. In this episode of the Break/Fix podcast, she joined us from her home studio in San Antonio, Florida, to share how she turned a passion for precision into a career that bridges engineering, storytelling, and art.

Raised in a family of NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers, Samantha grew up surrounded by technical drawings and mechanical curiosity. Her grandmother and grandfather were active in the Porsche Club of America, showing off their 914 and 944 at concours events across the country. Meanwhile, her dad leaned into the JDM scene with a Honda Prelude and Civic. Samantha, however, found herself drawn to the Porsche side of the spectrum – and never looked back.

But her first artistic muse wasn’t a car. It was a horse.

“I grew up being an equestrian,” she recalled. “It started with extra naturally aspirated horsepower.” Her early drawings were of horses, and her love of realism and anatomy was already taking shape. That foundation would later prove essential when she transitioned to automotive subjects.

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Zimmermann attended the University of South Florida as a double major in Fine Art and Biomedical Sciences – a pairing that might seem unusual, but makes perfect sense in her world. “Anatomy classes were actually really helpful,” she explained. “Whether it’s people or cars, you’re dealing with complex forms and proportions.”

Though USF’s art program leaned modern and conceptual, Samantha found her niche in printmaking, where her illustrative skills were appreciated. She honed her understanding of composition, color theory, and technical execution – skills that would become the backbone of her hyperrealistic style.

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Synopsis

This Break/Fix episode focuses on Samantha Zimmermann, a fine artist specializing in realistic automotive and motorsport paintings. Sam discusses her early interest in both art and motorsports, inspired by her engineering family and a pivotal visit to the 24 Hours of Daytona. She details her educational journey at the University of South Florida, her artistic process, and her love for painting cars and creating photorealistic art. Sam also talks about her passion for historic racing, her favorite tracks, and her future ambitions, including a scholarship fund for women and girls in the automotive industry. Listeners get insights into her inspirations, challenges, and advice for aspiring artists.

Tell us about growing up in a house full of engineers… from the sounds of it, you came up in a family of auto enthusiasts. What sorts of vehicles did you grow up around? What really got your attention?
We’re captivated by the entire sweeping romance of your backstory, with your then sweetheart, now husband taking you to your first sports car race, the rolex-24, and suddenly it all clicks. Tell us about that – what was it? What was the magic moment that made it all come together?
In your pieces you focus heavily on racing in the 70s and 80s, which could be considered the heyday of sports car racing, with names like Haywood, Stuck, St. James, Lanier, Ribbs and others in that mix. Why that time period? What’s the draw/appeal?
Many people say, and it’s true of racing as well “failures breed successes” – are there some projects that you look back on and go “the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze” or maybe something you still want to “get around to” #roundtuit
If you had to give advice to other (starving) aspiring artists, what would that be?
How does one go about acquiring some Samantha Zimmermann artwork? What is your commission process like?
What are you working on now? Any big projects you can share/reveal to our audience? #spoileralert

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder. How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us, because everyone has a story.

Executive Producer Tania: Like most enthusiasts, her love for cars and motorsports began at a young age. Formula One was a must on Sunday mornings. Raised in a family of NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers and technical drawers, our guest’s interest in the technicalities and precise nature of mechanical ingenuity came easily. Her childhood sweetheart, Michael, took her to her first 24 hours of Daytona in 2012, and her passion for all things motorsports has only continued to flourish from then through today.

Crew Chief Eric: Samantha Zimmermann is a fine artist specializing in realism with the breadth of her work [00:01:00] consisting of automotive and motorsport subjects. She joins us tonight from her home studio in San Antonio, Florida to tell us about how she blended her passion for art and motorsports into a blossoming career. So welcome to Brake Fix, Samantha.

Samantha Zimmermann: Thanks so much for having me on, Eric. I’m so excited to be able to sit here and chat with you guys this evening.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, like all good Brake Fix stories, everybody has a superhero origin. So tell us about growing up in a house full of engineers. From the sounds of it, you came up through a family of automotive enthusiasts.

So what sorts of vehicles did you grow up around and what really got your attention?

Samantha Zimmermann: Funny enough, my Grandmother and my grandfather were really big into PCA. They had a 914 back in the day. My grandma also had a 944. They used to take them around the country and do concours and all the PCA events and all that jazz.

And she has a few stories from where they’d Placed really well at some national events. On the other hand, my [00:02:00] dad was a lot more into the, uh, JDM scene and things along those lines. Like he had a Honda Prelude growing up with me and my mom had a Civic. So clearly I tended to, uh, teeter to one side of the spectrum versus the other, the Porsche side of things.

And that’s where I continue to stick.

Crew Chief Eric: So what made you go into art and painting, unlike following in the footsteps of your family and engineering and science and all that?

Samantha Zimmermann: From a very young age, at least, I’ve always been told that I was always really into art. Growing up with a bunch of technical drawers, obviously that passion for all things super precise and mechanical came with the territory.

I always really liked to draw. I always really liked to paint. It wasn’t always cars, but it’s just Something that I picked up and I couldn’t get away from.

Crew Chief Eric: You said it wasn’t always cars. What were some of your first creations? What brought you through the gateway into artistry?

Samantha Zimmermann: Uh, horses. And I [00:03:00] have a funny story about that too.

I grew up being an equestrian, so horseback rider. How Michael and I met was that he used to say horses were stupid. I would be like, no, they’re not. And I chased him around on the playground in second grade. Then as a consolation prize, he would steal his mom’s jewelry and bring it to me the next day.

Which she would be fond of, clearly, but it started with extra naturally aspirated horsepower, if you will.

Executive Producer Tania: And I saw one of your pieces that’s out on findartinamerica. com site for people who are interested in learning more and seeing some of your other pieces. The one Sly Eve Cavall, if I pronounced that correctly, it’s got three horses, it was a watercolor that you commissioned for somebody.

That is gorgeous painting.

Samantha Zimmermann: Thank you. Two more, uh, horsey paintings that I’ve done. within the last few years, but I would say for the majority now, it’s typically just portraits and car stuff, but I still like to do my

Crew Chief Eric: horses every so often. I mean, on the flip side of that, [00:04:00] she’s got BBS basket weave wheels too, so she’d have my attention.

Samantha Zimmermann: You can’t go wrong with BBSs. They make everything look amazing. We had a pair of E 80 eights for our 9 64 and they were so beautiful. .

Executive Producer Tania: You graduated from the University of South Florida, and so can you let some of our listeners know who may not be artists themselves? What does that progression look like when you go to university for art?

What are some of the classes you’re taking? How did you get trained? What did that look like?

Samantha Zimmermann: I got into USF. based off of artistic merit. So they brought me in with a small scholarship into their art program. Now USF’s art program specifically is a lot more modern, if you will, and conceptual in class versus being so illustrative.

I didn’t even major in painting when I went to USF. I was the printmaker, because my printmaking professor was so appreciative of my [00:05:00] skills as an illustrator, as opposed to my painting professors, who were like, just smear some paint around on the canvas and call it a day. Generally speaking though, when you’re going to university for art, you learn a lot of things along the lines of composition, color theory.

Those are your two building blocks and then overall technical skills. So how you end up using the medium to get the result that you want. Probably some of my favorite classes that I did take though, were art history, Renaissance art history was Baroque and Rococo. And then I did one on medieval art history, which was all.

Mostly like medieval manuscripts and stuff like that. It was pretty cool though. On the other hand, I was also a double major Biomedical Sciences and Fine Art.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s quite the combination.

Samantha Zimmermann: Oddly enough, yes. I had one path as opposed to the other, but I did really enjoy anatomy when I was in that class as well.

Executive Producer Tania: Taking anatomy classes is actually pretty helpful if you’re an artist who’s doing [00:06:00] human pictures or portraits or paintings, right? Absolutely.

Samantha Zimmermann: I think it’s funny. I see a lot of other artists and automotive artists, and it’s usually one way or the other not to rag on anybody, but it’s usually artists who can do people really well in organic shapes, or it’s people who can do cars really well and more geometric shapes.

It’s hard to find someone who can do a combination of both because they’re So

Executive Producer Tania: you just naturally had that ability to do that, or you’ve just practiced really hard because if anyone has never tried to draw a car, and I have, I’m not on your level of artistry, but a little bit of cartooning here and there is my area, but cars are very hard.

Trying to be realistic with a car. If you don’t have that perspective, right. And the proportions, right. You know, it’s one thing you’re drawing a house and one window is slightly bigger than the other or the height of the house, but if you have the heights and the proportions of the windshield to the headlights and all that [00:07:00] wrong, I mean, it just goes horrible really fast.

Samantha Zimmermann: I have some of my very first works that I’ve done. Just as a reminder to show myself where I’ve come from because my first piece of a car that I did minus the BBS that I have on Fine Art America, I did a 993 in green. Oh, honey, it’s rough. Like we’ve come a long way. We’re doing really good now but it’s taken a lot of practice for sure to get to the point that I’m at and it’s taken a lot of experimenting and switching from oils to pencil to acrylic and then oils I found is my happy place for sure.

A lot of practice and dedication to be able to just continue progressing like anything. They say it takes a thousand hours to master a skill. I mean, I’m sure I’ve put that in by now, but it’s definitely gotten to the point where I feel like I’m proficient at least.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny. I had these dreams when I was a kid of being an automotive designer.

[00:08:00] And you know, the first step in that is where you got to be able to draw. And to Tanya’s point, a complex three dimensional object, like a car on a two dimensional plane, a piece of paper is extremely complicated. Now behind you is the low and brown nine 62 behind me as a model of the Momo nine 35. When you’re looking at them in profile.

I think I could do that, but it’s when you suddenly take them into perspective that you’re right. All those proportions go completely nuts. And that’s something I could never wrap my head around. So I turned and I said, you know what? I’m going to do photography instead because I appreciate the aesthetic, but I can’t translate in my brain to the paper or to the canvas.

What it is I want to design.

Samantha Zimmermann: That’s okay. And I appreciate the hell out of all of the photographers and motorsports and automotive photographers out there. I mean, without them, I wouldn’t be able to do the work that I do. Anytime that I find a photo, I always ask the photographer ahead of time, Hey, is it cool if I use this picture for a reference?

I’ll send you a print as a thank you and give you all the credit. [00:09:00] For the original photo,

Crew Chief Eric: and that’s a great segue into how do you go from pen and ink to oils and acrylics to this new style that you see coming up? And there’s tons of other artists out there, pinstripe, Chris and others and yourself that are in the photo realistic.

Artistry, how do you take it to that level? I mean, I see some of these making of videos and I’m blown away. I’m fascinated by the techniques, but how do you get it to look like it was a photograph, but it’s really oils.

Samantha Zimmermann: Stylistically speaking. I think there’s some differentiations between each artist. So Manu, who I’ve met personally down at DRT in Miami.

Awesome guy. Absolute sweetheart. If you look at his work from about 10 feet away, it looks very photorealistic, but when you get close to it, it’s a little bit, I don’t want to say pop arty, but he’s very deliberate in his brushstrokes to where it’s very bold to get those bold highlights, but he also [00:10:00] does some nice gradients on top of that or underneath of that as well.

Penstripe Chris’s work, same thing. He’s a little bit More messy, I would say, but his work still comes off as being very realistic. Both amazing artists. I love both of their work. When you’re looking at doing something that looks like a photograph, you really have to look at shapes. You really have to look at what separates the foreground from the background.

So with most of my work, I do a soft focused or bokeh background. So it looks blurry. When you do that in conjunction with something that’s super in focus in the foreground, it helps aid to that really hyper realistic effect that you’re looking for. So when you’re looking at a car, you’re not seeing an outline in the photo.

It’s not like someone’s taking a pen and drawing an outline on it. What are the colors that separate it? That’s the most important thing. How does the light separate it? Second most important thing. [00:11:00] It’s really translating what your eye sees onto the canvas or paper, so to speak. So I look at things in all light, color, and shadow.

Crew Chief Eric: So are you building up in blocks or in stages or in layers, I guess? Or are you just developing it all in one shot?

Samantha Zimmermann: So generally speaking, what I’ll do is I’ll do the entire background first. That way I can paint on top of the background, what the main focus is. For instance, I have Bob Doyle’s Molnar Motorsports LMP3 car that I’m doing right now.

So I’m doing all the background at Daytona currently, and then I’ll go back in and I’ll paint his car on top.

Crew Chief Eric: So does the sketch of the car live underneath the background? So it’s always there as a reference, or do you just build on top of?

Samantha Zimmermann: I’ll leave a cutout of the drawing of the car basically. I might brush over the edges just a little bit.

I always have that there as my reference so I know where I’m going in the future when I get to that point.

Crew Chief Eric: These photorealistic paintings that you’re creating are obviously super [00:12:00] complicated, and I cannot fathom, you know, how many hours it takes to put one of these together, but I think our audience probably wants to know.

I mean, obviously we see the time lapse things on the internet and seems like you can get it all done in 20 minutes, right? But that’s not the case. What does it take to put something like that together?

Samantha Zimmermann: So typically I average about a hundred hours of painting time into each piece I do. The painting behind me, the Lowenbrau 962, took me 220 hours to paint.

I love what I do. It was definitely a labor of love. The most recent painting I produced, the 48 GT3 at Daytona with the grandstands in the background, I don’t even know how many hours it took me because that one was a bit of experimenting. Doing those seats, the background alone probably Took me at least 115, 120 hours.

It was a lot of work, but I do put a lot of love into my pieces. Generally speaking, you could bet on me putting around 115, 120 hours into it. [00:13:00] Just a normal commission.

Crew Chief Eric: So you probably walk away from it, come back, work on something else. You’re not just devoting 120 hours to that one piece, and then you do the next piece, and the next piece.

Samantha Zimmermann: depends. If I am working on a personal piece, I will do that. I’ll sit down, and I’ll put some time into it, and I’ll set it aside. If it’s a commission, I’ll usually put down whatever I’m working on, and I’ll devote all of my time to that piece until it’s complete, and then move on to the next one, or go back to the piece I was working on previously.

Executive Producer Tania: Are there any other future stages of car artwork? So you’re in the very realistic, photorealistic phase right now. Do you have any desires to do something different in the future?

Samantha Zimmermann: There’s definitely stuff I want to dabble into. So, I work in this super hyper realistic style with my portraits and with my car stuff.

And I also do this slightly more illustrative style that almost looks like a comic book. I have a piece that I did of the Martini Livery 935, or Moby Dick as it’s [00:14:00] more commonly known. That’s a bit more like a comic book style with like pen and ink and watercolor mixed into each other. There’s part of me that also wants to dabble in getting, I won’t say messier, but a little bit more abstract with it, but it’s extremely hard for me to break it down.

Like, my brain does not work that way. How Manu does it, how Chris does it, I could never do it. I’m so meticulous about everything I do. It has to be perfect.

Executive Producer Tania: Maybe one day you’ll get there. Just gotta let it go loose. Yeah,

Samantha Zimmermann: maybe when I’m in my 60s and I just don’t care anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: We all strive to hit that point in our lives.

Executive Producer Tania: So, we’re captivated by your seemingly sweeping romance with your then sweetheart taking you to your first Rolex 24 sports car race, now he’s your husband, right? Was that the moment that kind of it all clicked that the art was going to be cars, [00:15:00] or was there some other moment where that all came together for you?

Samantha Zimmermann: Michael, my husband, he drives. Not as often as he’d like to. He’s working on his car right now, but he always was a carter. So he did, um, shifter carts over in Germany. That’s where he’s from. So he was national shifter cart champion twice, and he did testing for Formula Renault. He came over and I kind of fell away from the car thing.

I mean, I grew up watching F1 with my dad, but I sort of got into the horse stuff and I was like, yeah, cars, whatever we’re going to deal with the horses. So he took me to Daytona for Rolex. The entire atmosphere there is just. So energetic and so exciting. And somebody said to me perfectly what it is about racing.

That’s so unique is you can’t write a script for it. You never know what’s going to happen. That’s what makes it so exhilarating. So to speak after experiencing that for the first time, and then the [00:16:00] community that surrounds racing and the support of just race fans in general, I don’t think. comparable to any other sport.

I mean, if you look at Daytona, it’s a bunch of guys and a bunch of teams beating the crap out of a car for 24 hours as hard as they can to be able to come in first. There’s unexpected things that happen, but there’s a lot of really cool Cinderella stories that happen as well. More specifically, Historic’s pretty much regulars at this point to HSR events and HSR Daytona’s coming up.

Looking at how cars were built then as opposed to now is just mind boggling to see the evolution of how far we’ve come and how the innovation began and it’s continuing to progress in sports car racing. There’s nothing compared to being able to stand trackside, having your eardrums blasted by the RSRs going by, or the Corvettes for that [00:17:00] matter, they’re so loud.

But to be able to capture that and put it on canvas is what I really wanted to go for, because you don’t get that excitement from pretty much anything else.

Executive Producer Tania: Very true. So, uh, what is Michael working on in the garage?

Samantha Zimmermann: He originally had a 964 that was converted to a full track car, and he sold that. Now, he has a Diazio, which is a kit car made by Fabric, and it has a Hayabusa motor in it, actually.

It’s like a three quarter scale 962, is what it looks like. Sort of like a Radical. Almost, yes, but it’s a closed cockpit as opposed to a Radical. It’s pretty cool. I have some pictures of it on my Instagram, if I’m not mistaken, but I think he’s going to end up doing the shell livery on it, which I’m pretty stoked about.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m partial to Alitalia liveries, you know, just saying, but, but that actually brings us right back into your artwork because that’s a very 70s thing, you know, like the Audi [00:18:00] sport stuff, the Momo 935 behind me, the Lohenbrau 962 behind you, things like that. And so, You said something really important. You went to Daytona in 2012 and you were talking about how the cars before that time were just mind blowing in terms of their engineering and their design and things like that.

And I agree with you 100%. If you look at the different decades of vehicles, especially in racing outside of the street cars, they’re so wildly different. They change drastically. But then when you went to Rolex, they kind of stayed the same for a while. It’s the same kind of cars now as it was then. So what took you to the seventies into the eighties, to the heyday of Can-Am Camel GT TransAm, IM ssa.

You know, there were so many different sanctioning bodies at that time that hadn’t gotten all together yet. Why the seventies in the eighties?

Samantha Zimmermann: I am super partial to that because those are your glory days of racing, so to speak. If you ever get a chance to sit down and talk with Derek Bell [00:19:00] about his time driving the nine 17, it’s basically like driving.

Lawn furniture around super ridiculously lightweight cage that wasn’t meant to do anything but cut weight and it’s super funny listening to him talk about it, but I think at that point there was so much more room for creativity and ingenuity and we didn’t understand as much about aerodynamics at that point as we do now, whereas everything is Pretty much super uniform because we have such a better understanding of how all of that works on top of that.

We didn’t have as many regulations for what racing is allowed to be like fuel consumption and things along those lines. A lot of things are going hybrid now, which is fine, but racing is racing. For a reason, I understand the need for developing cleaner energy and things to that regard. But I think at that point, there was still freedom [00:20:00] to be able to try and create a car and dabble in those gray areas and try to find any way to get a 10th off of a lap or more than that.

Crew Chief Eric: I think it goes hand in hand with your art. It’s freedom of expression, right? You’re allowing the engineers. The drivers to push the envelope, and it gets right at the heart of something we’ve talked about throughout this entire season in sports car racing, which is clearly defined as balance of power, right?

Where they’re trying to really make for good television by keeping cars super close. I’ve said it before, if in reality, if you want to go build a 6 wheeled Tyrrell. Go get it. Who cares?

Samantha Zimmermann: That’s what I was going to say. I was like, I know that six weird TRL is going to come up at some point. Oh my gosh. It’s so cool.

And you just don’t see stuff like that anymore. When you’re looking at racing now, I feel like we’re just on the cusp of getting back into a second golden era of racing with new LMDH program coming in. I’m really excited to see what ends up happening [00:21:00] with these cars. It’s an interesting trickle down effect.

If you’re looking at testing on our cars, road cars, it stems from, I feel, what we’re doing with cars on the track. So there are a handful of companies now that are really looking into hydrogen power, which I think is super interesting and it could make for a really cool outcome. But furthermore, I think we’re allowing for a little bit more ingenuity nowadays in this class, as opposed to what we’ve had for, what, the last 10 years.

So I’m hoping we’ll have some better racing and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to see a little bit more creativity coming up in this next generation of racing that we’re having

Crew Chief Eric: from the design and art perspective. I mean, let’s take away, there’s only one design that cheats the wind. Deliveries were a lot different in the seventies and eighties too.

You had a lot more petroleum companies, obviously tobacco companies, beer companies like Lohenbraun, you just don’t see that anymore. I mean. I’m trying to think of liveries that really stand out in me right now. I’m thinking maybe like Michelle Abate’s Ghost [00:22:00] Trans Am Mustang, because it’s just so in your face, you don’t see liveries like that anymore.

They’re all just kind of just blend together like NASCARs do, you know?

Samantha Zimmermann: I am so tired of red, white, and blue and black. I am so bored. One of my favorites right now is Samantha Tan’s BMW.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s gorgeous.

Samantha Zimmermann: Like Van Gogh. So I’ve been super happy with that one, but I’ve been saying this. We need a revival in color.

I’m so tired of seeing boring color other than the Wins. Wins has been pretty good at sticking to their guns with their purple. I’m stoked on that. Even their 962 looks great running around the track. It’s one of my favorites. I’m ready to see some more color and liveries on track this year, or hopefully next.

Sometime in the near future, anything would be good at this point. We should bring back alien or valiant or however you pronounce it on the 935 that green is to die for. Honestly, it’s one of my

Crew Chief Eric: go to 100 percent 100 percent I agree. And, [00:23:00] you know, speaking of the heyday of racing, too, there were so many names that still linger that we talk about all the time from that period.

I mean, we had Lindsay James on the show, Randy linear, any pilgrim, you know, and so on down the line. There’s just so many people from that time period that it’s just like what a phenomenal time to have been in racing. The cars were amazing. The drivers were fantastic. Not saying that the drivers of today aren’t great, but it’s just to your point, those stories, it all goes hand in hand.

And hopefully you’re right. Hopefully 23 brings us. That revival, because coming to the big stage at Le Mans, you’ve got almost everybody’s petition to car between Peugeot, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Cadillac, and so on down the lines. It’s like, holy smokes, like move over Toyota. You’re not going to win Le Mans by default.

Samantha Zimmermann: Even still, racing back then was just so much different than it is nowadays. Have you seen the movie Rush? Mm hmm. Okay, there’s some aspects of what Hemsworth says as he’s portraying Hunt where he says, I [00:24:00] think women like racing drivers because they’re so close to death and they’re the most alive. It’s true in some regard.

I definitely think that the safety was not where it is nowadays, but I think the atmosphere was just so much different. Regulations and things along those lines were, again, just so much more lax. Opportunity for so much more like tinkering here and there.

Executive Producer Tania: It was a send it atmosphere because people didn’t know any better.

Samantha Zimmermann: Exactly. I’m hoping we’re getting into this next golden era because recently I’ve seen this renewed interest, not only in. Reengineering how we’re putting cars together and whatnot, but in the arts, in the automotive industry. So I’m hoping that original liveries will be making a comeback or new colorful liveries will be making a comeback.

Even as recent as Pebble Beach, if you looked at every manufacturer that was out there, they were working with an artist who was there working live. With them at their [00:25:00] booths or whatnot like I know Lamborghini have one I know Porsche at their little booth that they had out there had four or five different artists that they were working with drawing on the cars.

It was really cool. So I’m really hoping that this is going to be sparking a renewed interest. in the arts and cars and bringing back fun liveries and things along those even memorabilia to that regard like posters and all that jazz we don’t see as much of that anymore as we used to we

Executive Producer Tania: need to put the a in stem and get steam more front and center science tech engineering art in there along with mathematics

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely.

Executive Producer Tania: Absolutely.

Crew Chief Eric: And right along with that, I took my daughter to her first big sports car race and she fell in love with the Lamborghini Huracan that’s part of Flying Lizard known as Sparkle Farts. It’s that pink unicorn. It’s a bright, you know, just ostentatious livery. But she’s immediately like, Oh my God, I took her over to meet Andy Lee and some of the crew.

And now she’s a fan. [00:26:00] She’s like, when’s the next flooding lizard race? Where are they going to be? What are they doing? And you know, that’s the thing to your point, these striking liveries, that’s how you engage the young people too, because it catches their eye and the red whites and blues and the blacks, they just fade into the background.

Samantha Zimmermann: Even if you look at the iron Danes in Europe, their bright pink Ferrari that they do, their 488 is incredible. And they’ve been killing it all season. It’s like you’re saying, it’s super important to engage a younger audience because especially with HSR and historic sports car racing, not many people know about it.

I feel like the attendance has been better in the past than it is currently, but I think it’s so important to engage younger folks and getting them in. interested in that event because that’s where it all stemmed from where everything that we’re at currently has evolved from. And it’s super cool to see the history on track and it won’t be like that

Crew Chief Eric: forever.

You mentioned at the beginning that you come by your affinity for Porsche, honestly, through your grandparents and growing up around 914s and [00:27:00] 944s and the Porsche club, et cetera. But there’s also some hints. In your collections on your website to the Audi side of, you know, Porsche, Audi, and VW. And what got me was the portrait of Walter Rural.

And I said, man, where are the Group B cars? Because if you’re focused on the seventies and eighties, we got to see some Audi Quattros and some Michel Mouton and, you know, Peugeots and Renaults and everything else. So is that next too?

Samantha Zimmermann: So I have a series in mind. If you notice, they’ve drawn a lot of guys. I have a whole series of women in motorsports that I’d like to do as well, including Michelle, including Sabine, the ladies from the Iron Dames, Lynn St.

James. There’s a whole shlew of them that I’d love to get involved with. I actually just did one of Deborah Gregg and not many people know her story and it’s a little sad and she got a little bit of flack. But she was really pivotal in helping keeping Brumos Racing alive [00:28:00] after the death of Peter Craig.

I’ll be excited to share that one soon. I can’t quite share it yet, but you know that I definitely have plans to get into some of the ladies on the motorsport side of things, as well as more cars. Walter actually said he would sign that for me whenever we get around to I’m hoping we’ll make it back over to Germany at some point and run into him at an event and get him to sign it for me.

That’d be super cool.

Executive Producer Tania: All right. So earlier we were talking about Michael and what he’s working on in the garage and you mentioned he was. Shifter kart champion and testing for Renault. He’s clearly into part of the racing community and you’ve already listed off different races you’ve been to and this, that, and the other places you’re planning to go.

So clearly you’re spending time around the paddocks. What is your favorite track so far? Did you have been to most picturesque taking it from the art perspective?

Samantha Zimmermann: There’s two tracks that come to mind. [00:29:00] Road Atlanta is absolutely stunning with the S’s. Second of all, who can say. What’s more beautiful than the corkscrew at Laguna Seca.

It’s absolutely gorgeous. You get a lot of really cool images off of there. With the Velocity Imitational, I’ve seen a lot of stuff and I’m like, oh man, I’m gonna have to cram it in and paint that because it’s gorgeous. There’s a lot of really, really beautiful pieces or photos that come from Laguna Seca and Road Atlanta.

Those are two of my favorite tracks, for sure.

Executive Producer Tania: Have you gone to many tracks in Europe at all?

Samantha Zimmermann: We’ve been to the Nürburgring. That’s the only one that I’ve been to personally. When we went back over a few years ago, we were hoping to be able to get on track, but they were doing qualifying for the 24 hour Nürburgring.

So, we just got to sit outside and listen. To all the gloriousness beating around the ring, but we didn’t get to go on it last time around, unfortunately.

Executive Producer Tania: So do you have [00:30:00] a track in mind anywhere in the world that you’d want to go or paint?

Samantha Zimmermann: Funny enough, I’d really like to do a piece from the Monaco Grand Prix.

Executive Producer Tania: That’d be cool.

Samantha Zimmermann: Historically speaking, it’s a very rich track, and there’s a lot of really cool stuff in the background. A lot of buildings. Unfortunately,

Crew Chief Eric: I want to take that to the next level. It needs to be the Monaco rally along the hillside, you know, one lane roads, I’m a little partial to rally. I’m just saying,

Samantha Zimmermann: no, I wouldn’t have known at all.

I’d like to do a piece from Road Atlanta. I haven’t gotten to do one from there yet.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, I hear V. I. R. is really pretty.

Samantha Zimmermann: V. I. R. is very pretty. Michael used to go kart there a lot.

Executive Producer Tania: You’ll have to paint the oak tree in though.

Samantha Zimmermann: That’s right, absolutely. Listen, the oak tree is not a fun time for anybody that’s had to meet it face to face, unfortunately.

Crew Chief Eric: man. But you could totally Bob Ross that thing in. I mean, it’ll be happy little oak tree. It’ll be amazing.

Samantha Zimmermann: I have plenty of reference in the front [00:31:00] yard. I mean, you know, we’ll just slap it in there. It’s no big deal.

Executive Producer Tania: You got this. You got this.

Samantha Zimmermann: I think spa would be cool too. Spa would be a fun track to paint.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s a whole bunch of them. This could go on. He’d be very busy if you were just hitting every different track. Adjacent question. So Michael’s into racing. How about you? Have you ever gotten behind the wheel? Maybe just done a high performance driving weekend or anything? Do you want to? If you haven’t

Samantha Zimmermann: So, I had this bet.

I wouldn’t say a bet, we had a deal. He said if he got on a horse, I would have to get into the race car with him. Okay, that’s never gonna happen, but whatever. He gets on the horse, he gets off. He says, you know what this means, right? Like, What? You’re gonna have to get in the race car with me. I’m like, okay, whatever.

Didn’t really think anything of it at the time. Down here in Florida, we have a little track called The Firm. He had a little [00:32:00] BMW Z3 coupe, so clown shoe. KW’s on! He redid every single bushing known to man with polyurethane, so it was literally, like, on rails. It was so stiff, it was not even funny. He takes it to the firm, he looks at me, he’s like, Remember when I got on that horse?

I was like, Oh no. Let me just say, I’m not a great passenger, alright? So I get in the car with him, and he’s just doing, like, call it a parade lap or whatever, just to get the lay of the land with everybody, and I’m already sitting there like, Oh god, okay, here we go. Comes back in, I grab a helmet, get in the car with him.

He’s like, alright, you ready? I’m like, I guess. So he takes me out, and I’m trying to film him. I’m just screaming internally, like, oh my god, it was Seriously, one of the most experiences of my life. Make it stop! Colin, who’s pretty well seasoned in that, gets in the [00:33:00] car with him, he comes back in and he’s just like, I’m not getting in the car with him again.

It takes a lot to make me nervous, but my god, he hits those brakes so late going into those turns. Granted, the whole time it was fine. According to him, I have a lead foot when I’m driving, so it’s a different story. The roles are reversed, but we both karting together. I’ve got a little low 206 kart that he got me into, and he’s got his shifter kart.

That’s a 175cc, I believe. But funny enough, it used to be Sebastian Bourdais.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a small community, right?

Samantha Zimmermann: He’s down here for the Kart for Kids event that they put on right around the same time as the St. Pete Grand Prix. But it seems like it’s a small world, especially when you niche down even more into karting in cars.

Executive Producer Tania: All right, so we would be remiss if we didn’t have some Pit Stop questions for you and you being an artist, we will make them a little bit more specific this time. [00:34:00] What car posters were on your wall as a kid? Did you have any or maybe they were horses

Samantha Zimmermann: as a kid? I did not have any. It was just horses and more horses and motivational quotes, like hang on with the little cat on the branch or whatever.

But you could essentially say that now I do. So I have all my artwork that I have hanging up and I have a bunch of old. 80s Porsche advertisement posters upstairs that are pretty cool that are original to the period. So I just decorate my walls at this point how I would have when I was younger. So it’s just a bunch of horses and it’s a bunch of race cars.

Very nice.

Crew Chief Eric: Which begs the question, what’s the best

Samantha Zimmermann: livery? That’s a great question. So I would arguably say

Crew Chief Eric: Jägermeister.

Samantha Zimmermann: Bright orange, but you gotta give me a little bit more than just orange. I would say the Valiant, so on the K3 [00:35:00] 935, one of the reasons I painted it, because I love it. Between that one, Lohenbrau, and then your Classic Wins.

I love those three. They’re my favorites. They’re really, really good.

Executive Producer Tania: Sexiest car of all time or cars?

Crew Chief Eric: Most beautiful in the eyes of an artist.

Samantha Zimmermann: Okay. I really enjoy the look of a 356 Speedster. It’s beautiful. Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing. Absolutely beautiful car. DB5. Very classic looking, very chic, you can’t go wrong with it.

Styling from that time was just, it was all about beauty and function.

Crew Chief Eric: So the opposite of that question is obviously, what is the ugliest car of all time? But is there such a thing for an artist? Because you guys find beauty in everything, right?

Samantha Zimmermann: There’s nothing beautiful about a Pontiac Aztec. Yes! I knew it!

It’s so bad! Like, what were we doing? We just took some clay [00:36:00] and slapped it around and we’re like, yeah, it’s great. End of the day.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the poor Aztec.

Samantha Zimmermann: It’s just like nothing you could do to it to like soften it up at all.

Crew Chief Eric: Talk a lot about colors, right? You talk about these liveries and how you’re tired of red, white, blue, and blacks.

So, What is the best color combination for a vehicle? Is black the most beautiful? Depends

Samantha Zimmermann: on the black. I do like painting black a lot because there’s a lot of really interesting reflections you can get out of it that you don’t get out of some other colors. I really like Green so take for instance British Racing Green on Cognac.

I really like that combo. It feels Very rich to me and the two tones work really well together. On top of that if you do blue either with Uh, light gray interior. I like that a lot as well. I think that’s a really nice combination. So kind of like the Sally special that Portia just [00:37:00] came out with. Nice.

Good reference.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a lot of famous car designers out there. Some are better known than others, right? You could say Pininfarina. You could say Bertone. Tanya and I are extremely partial to Giugiaro. So that brings up the question, do you have a favorite design house or designer or a brand that you gravitate to that isn’t Porsche?

Samantha Zimmermann: Well, I’m wearing a 962 shirt and I have Porsche earrings. If I were to pick another brand, I do really like Aston. I like Aston a lot. I think that they’re very classically beautiful, as well as even classic Mercedes. I think a lot of them are very nice as well. Partial to Aston as well, because I really like James Bond, but that’s a story for another time.

Executive Producer Tania: So are you still an F1 fan?

Samantha Zimmermann: I am. Yes, I will say. Modern F1, ever since Drive to Survive has come in, has become a bit more [00:38:00] dramatic, I suppose, or almost feels a bit scripted at times.

Executive Producer Tania: Getting too soap opery? It’s turned

Crew Chief Eric: into WWE.

Samantha Zimmermann: No, that’s what monster trucks are. It’s WWE, done with, like, big tire trucks everywhere.

Executive Producer Tania: The real question is, who do you think the GOAT is? In Formula One, across time.

Samantha Zimmermann: I’m gonna get a bunch of flack for this, probably, but regardless of what your thoughts are on him, I do really like Lewis. I think that he’s been very successful. I also really enjoy the prospect of Mick coming up through the ranks.

Albeit, has, has some Not so nice words to say about Nick saying he’s very offensive. I’m like, yeah, we’re getting attention when Mazepin was driving for you, but I digress, you know,

Executive Producer Tania: that was fine because his daddy was paying the checks.

Samantha Zimmermann: Yeah, exactly. Exactly Historically, I would say [00:39:00] between Schumacher and Senna for sure Those two I feel like are the creme de la creme for that.

Executive Producer Tania: For people interested, please go on her website, samanthaZimmermannart. com. Go to the gallery and there is a gorgeous painting of Ayrton Senna. Thank you. Just, just stare at it for a while because it’s just like, sucks you in. It’s very nice.

Samantha Zimmermann: There’s a really interesting story behind that photo actually. If you watch the Schumacher documentary, you’ll hear about it, but Schumacher and Senna had gotten into a tussle on track, and he had taken Senna out.

Senna was looking at the track, like, mulling things over afterwards, a bit heated. To be understood, but, you know,

Crew Chief Eric: that was every weekend with him and Alan Prost. So, you know, it’s all good.

Samantha Zimmermann: Oh, my God. Bless. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: And if you haven’t seen the Senate documentary, definitely see that that is quite good.

Crew Chief Eric: All right.

[00:40:00] Our last and final pit stop question. This is the most important one. And please think carefully before answering

Executive Producer Tania: the answer. A split second. I could be wrong.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re the last one in the design room and your vote counts to settle a tie. A debate between which car is going to be released. The venerable technology filled Porsche 959 or the hot under the collar passionate Ferrari F40.

Which do you choose?

Samantha Zimmermann: Oh man, this is a hot button topic for sure. Having sat in an F40. They’re beautiful. I adore them. I have not sat in a 959. Man, this is a real toss up. You threw me for a loop here. Oh my God.

Executive Producer Tania: I thought she’d answer easy.

Samantha Zimmermann: No, you didn’t say anything about the Enzo though. Granted, I know they’re not quite the same era.

Crew Chief Eric: She’s looking for an out. Oh, the [00:41:00] Enzo look over here.

Samantha Zimmermann: Yeah, I don’t know, man. There’s something about German engineering for me. The 959.

Executive Producer Tania: Knew it. I knew it.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright, that’s fair. That’s fair. You’re a Porsche gal through and through. I appreciate that. I can understand. I will say, you are in a very small club of people that choose the 959, though.

Samantha Zimmermann: The 959. I’ve seen one in person. They’re absolutely lovely. I’ve heard one go around the track. Absolutely phenomenal. Both of them are great cars. I mean, that’s like your classic poster that would be on any kid’s room in the nineties, right?

Crew Chief Eric: So many people say it’s true of racing as well as in your career and many other careers that failures breed successes.

And earlier you talked about that 993 that reminds you all the time of how far you’ve come on your journey. Are there still some projects that you look back on and go, man, the juice really wasn’t worth the squeeze or something that’s been sitting to the side that you never finished, you know, [00:42:00] that you’re going to get around to it.

Talk about. Advice for other starving artists, or let’s call them aspiring artists. What would that be? Lessons you’ve learned, some things you can tell them to help them get over that block.

Samantha Zimmermann: There’s a really good book written by Lisa Congdon that talks about being an artist, and the artistic process is like the shape of a U.

At the beginning, on this side, on the thumb, you start and You’re really excited because you’re starting a new piece and it’s going to go awesome. And then you start to travel down the U to what she calls the ugly pit of despair, where you’re like, this is hot garbage and it’s not going great at all. And that’s kind of the point that most people, I feel like it’s stuck in.

I still get stuck in it where I’ll just be sitting and staring at my painting from across the room. I hate it, but if you keep working at it, even if it’s a little bit, like five minutes a day, that’s all you have to do. You start to work your way back up that [00:43:00] side of the U to where you’re finished, and that’s at your high point again.

You learn a lot along the way, especially with artwork and painting in particular. It’s a process and you just have to trust the process and you have to get through the part. It’s ugly phase before you get to the pretty phase. I have a couple pieces right now that are in their ugly phase that I haven’t been able to touch because I’m busy on commissions.

But if you just even work on it just a little bit a day, you’re going to end up learning something new. You’re going to end up figuring out how to do stuff faster the next time, what works and what doesn’t work. And you’re still going to end up with a great piece at the end of the day. It’s just a matter of pushing through that point of where it’s in its ugly phase.

Executive Producer Tania: So are there any artists that you look up to? I think you mentioned a few names earlier. I mean, are those some of your top ones? Are there others that you haven’t mentioned that are still inspiring your art today?

Samantha Zimmermann: Oh, yes. One of my favorite artists, who’s a very good friend of mine, is Kelly Telfer. I call [00:44:00] him like my art mentor because he’s helped me so much get from where I was when I was first starting to where I am now.

Super great guy, super talented, super super helpful with any and all questions you may have about art. Tim Laizell is another artist that I really enjoy. He does the poster artwork for the Pebble Beach Concord as well as I think he’s done it for Goodwood. Previously, he’s based in the UK, fabulous artist.

Ackwood, he’s based in Australia and he does a lot of really nice work as well. Those are probably my top three artists that I look up to and still get a lot of inspiration from. I feel like we see each other’s work and we all somehow push each other by seeing each other’s work to do better.

Executive Producer Tania: So, are you kind of like a lone wolf here?

You’ve rattled off a lot of different artists and they’re all men.

Samantha Zimmermann: Well, actually, I lied. I do have a couple other female artists that I do like. There’s this girl named Emma. She’s based in [00:45:00] the UK and she’s very good. Kate Cook, who’s in Texas, who’s awesome. Lynn Heiner is wonderful as well, but her work is a little bit different style.

She does like all palette knife stuff. As far as women in the automotive and motorsports art industry.

Executive Producer Tania: Which was more my particular question.

Samantha Zimmermann: Yeah, it’s definitely just like the fine art world. It’s a lot more geared towards men. There may be people that Disagree with that statement. That’s okay. But it is, and it always has been, that men have preference in the art world as opposed to women.

And when you get even more specific into automotive and motorsports art, or automotive and motorsports industries, it’s predominantly ruled by men. And that’s fine, that’s well and good. We’re seeing some shifts now, like IMSA does their program that they try and sponsor a female or a minority driver to come into the series, as well as the [00:46:00] women formula series that’s over in Europe.

Like I said earlier, I’ve mentioned them numerous times, the Iron Dames over in the European law series. It’s not as exclusive to men as it used to be, but there are definitely still remnants of that mentality that it’s a man’s world in that type of work. It’s super important that women and girls are also represented just as much as men that have the passion for it because it does exist.

There’s a ton of us that are out there, and I think it’s super important to bring awareness to the fact that not many people recognize that we also make the same quality work being in the subject matter that it is. For instance, Porsche Corporate published two articles recently within the last six months.

One was about digital artists to watch that are inspired by Porsche. And I looked through it, [00:47:00] it was all men, and I know most of them, it’s digital art. That’s fine. Okay. They did a second article recently, about two months ago, for traditional artists that are inspired by Portia. I looked through it. I know all of the artists on there.

Not a single woman. It’s all men. It’s just a little discouraging because there’s plenty of women out there that are equally as talented that deserve to be represented by Portia. I feel like it just added to the stigma that cars and fine art our man’s world. Left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

Executive Producer Tania: need to break this stigma that cars are for boys. Cars are for anyone.

Crew Chief Eric: Couldn’t agree more. And I look at it for what it is. I don’t judge it based on who made it or what made it or how it was made. I mean, a car is an example, like the Lower Brown 962. It wasn’t one person that put that together. It was a team of people, men, women.

It’s just amazing what we can do when we put our heads together and buckle down to do [00:48:00] it. So to your point, I think we do need to highlight the people that are behind the scenes that aren’t being recognized in the same way and, you know, in total fairness. So that shift is coming and we’re seeing more of it.

And that’s why we have folks like yourself on this show to tell your story and to be able to share that with everybody.

Executive Producer Tania: So what we haven’t talked about is how does one go about acquiring some Samantha Zimmermann artwork?

Samantha Zimmermann: So for commissions, if you go to my website, you can hit a contact form and you can fill out all the information and send me an email with that.

Or you can send me an email directly. It’s samZimmermannart at gmail. com. If you’re looking at buying an original for me of my produce works, I have them all listed on my website as well. I do have prints of the majority of my work. Just get in touch with me and I’m more than happy to assist from there.

Crew Chief Eric: And there’s a store coming soon, right? On the website it says.

Samantha Zimmermann: Yeah, for sure. So there’s a store coming. It’s just a matter of technologically setting everything up to get it [00:49:00] sorted out to make it easier for everybody to buy prints and originals and things to that effect. But if you have any inquiries about things that I’ve listed on the website or prints, anything to that effect, like I said, you’re welcome to get in touch with me.

I’m more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Executive Producer Tania: So you alluded to earlier about having more women in the motorsports and cars as a theme in your artwork, or is there any other big projects you want to share or can reveal, you know, hashtag spoiler alert to anyone?

Samantha Zimmermann: So I have a project I’ve been working on with an author named Sean Cridland.

Who wrote the history of Brumos Racing. It’s a group of artists, myself included, that are working on some pieces for him that will be auctioned off for charity. That’s about as much as I can reveal on that. But I do also have some interesting things in the works coming up for this year. Maybe with Target 66, maybe with the Amelia Island Concord, [00:50:00] possibly you could see me at Rensport Reunion and some other events in California this year coming up.

Very nice.

Crew Chief Eric: Very cool. Well, with that said, Samantha, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered thus far?

Samantha Zimmermann: Well, in the future, I’d really love to be able to set up a scholarship foundation or something along those lines or a parody foundation that helps girls and women get into the industry, even if it’s art or if it’s something along the mechanical lines.

That’s a goal of mine to be able to provide that in the future to have that as a sort of scholarship fund for people looking to get into the industry. Thank you to my wonderful husband, Michael, who supports me in my insanity with my artwork that it is and Kelly for helping lead me along the way and all of my wonderful friends and family and followers that have come along on this journey of motor sports artwork from the very beginnings to what it is now.

Executive Producer Tania: [00:51:00] Samantha’s art influences consist of a mixed group of prominent renaissance baroque and classic masters, along with 20th and 21st century pop impressionists and realism artists that inspire and aid her in her artistic style. She brings to life through oil and graphite mediums, a near photorealistic scene from the motorsports world.

Truly breathtaking pieces that you can see, admire and possibly purchase through her website, www.samanthaZimmermannart.com. You can also follow the progress of her next pieces by following her on social at Samantha Zimmermann Arts on Facebook and at Zimmy Arts on Instagram, or look her up on LinkedIn too.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Samantha, I cannot thank you enough for coming on break fix and sharing your story with everyone out there. And I’m hoping that if there are other inspiring artists that are listening to this right now that they go check out your work and see the kinds of things you’re putting out there because they are absolutely amazing.

And they do capture. [00:52:00] As you said, that golden age in motorsports and seeing the pictures, I really feel and I sense your love and your passion, especially for Porsches and Audis through the work, but also for the motorsports community at large. And that’s something that it’s very hard to replicate. And I appreciate you doing this for all of us, being able to show us this part of the world in such a really awesome way.

Samantha Zimmermann: Well, thank you. Thank you very much for the kind words. I, um, certainly aspire to be able to transport my viewers to feel like they’re their track side again without physically being there. Even more with the golden era of motorsports, just because. It’s going to be too expensive eventually to run some of the cars on tracks, so trying to capture the memory and put it right there.

Well, I really appreciate you having me on and taking some time to sit down and talk about cars and art, and it’s been great talking to you guys. That

Executive Producer Tania: was great.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what [00:53:00] you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram at GrandTouringMotorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM 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.

For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig newtons, gummy bears, and monster. [00:54:00] Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Highlights

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

00:00 Introduction to Break/Fix Podcast
00:27 Samantha Zimmermann’s Early Life and Passion for Cars
02:20 Journey into Art and Motorsports
04:13 University Experience and Artistic Development
06:21 Challenges and Techniques in Automotive Art
14:43 The Influence of Racing on Art
26:52 Future Projects and Inspirations
29:59 Dream Tracks to Paint
31:17 Racing Experiences and Bet Fulfillment
33:48 Pit Stop Questions: Childhood Posters and Favorite Liveries
35:11 Most Beautiful and Ugliest Cars
36:18 Favorite Color Combinations and Design Houses
37:49 Thoughts on Modern F1 and the Greatest of All Time
41:37 Artistic Process and Advice for Aspiring Artists
43:44 Inspiration and Mentorship in Art
45:10 Women in Automotive and Motorsports Art
48:17 How to Acquire Samantha Zimmermann’s Artwork
49:16 Future Projects and Final Thoughts

Bonus Content

Learn More

Get some art for your Home, Office or Garage!

Truly breathtaking pieces that you can see, admire and possibly purchase through her website www.samanthaZimmermannart.com – you can also follow the progress of her next pieces by following her on social @samanthaZimmermannarts on Facebook and @zimmy_arts on Instagram or look her up on Linkedin too!

The turning point came in 2012, when Michael took her to her first Rolex 24 at Daytona. “The atmosphere was electric,” she said. “You can’t write a script for racing. That unpredictability, that energy—it hooked me.”

From that moment, her artistic focus shifted. Motorsports became her muse. “There’s nothing like standing trackside, getting your eardrums blasted by RSRs or Corvettes. I wanted to capture that on canvas.”

Zimmermann’s paintings are often mistaken for photographs – and that’s by design. Her process is meticulous: she begins with a soft-focus background to create depth, then layers in the car with painstaking attention to light, shadow, and shape. “I average about 100 hours per piece,” she said. “Some take over 200. The Lowenbrau 962 behind me? That was 220 hours.”

She credits motorsport photographers as essential collaborators. “I always ask permission to use a photo as reference, and I send them a print as a thank-you. Without them, I couldn’t do what I do.”

A Love Letter to Racing’s Golden Eras

While Zimmermann paints modern GT3s and LMP3s, her heart belongs to the 1970s and ’80s—the golden age of Can-Am, IMSA, and Group C. “There was so much more freedom back then,” she said. “The engineering was wild. The liveries were bold. It was art on wheels.”

She’s especially drawn to the stories behind the machines. “If you ever talk to Derek Bell about driving the 917, it’s like strapping yourself to lawn furniture. That kind of rawness doesn’t exist anymore.”

Her dream? To see a revival of color and creativity in modern liveries. “I’m so tired of red, white, blue, and black. We need more sparkle farts and Van Gogh BMWs,” she laughed, referencing the Flying Lizard Lamborghini and Samantha Tan’s vibrant GT3.

Looking Ahead: Women, Legacy, and the Next Golden Age

Zimmermann is currently working on a series celebrating women in motorsports, including Michelle Mouton, Sabine Schmitz, and the Iron Dames. She recently completed a portrait of Deborah Gregg, a lesser-known but pivotal figure in Brumos Racing history.

She’s also optimistic about the future of racing. “With LMDh and new technologies like hydrogen, we’re on the cusp of a second golden era. I hope it brings back the ingenuity and artistry that made the past so special.”

As for her favorite tracks? Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca top the list for their visual drama. “The corkscrew at Laguna? It’s a painter’s dream.”

Samantha Zimmermann’s work is more than just beautiful – it’s a bridge between eras, disciplines, and passions. Whether she’s painting a 962 in motion or capturing the quiet intensity of a driver’s portrait, she’s telling the story of motorsports through the lens of art.

And in doing so, she’s inspiring a new generation to see racing not just as competition, but as culture.

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Lucy O’Reilly Schell: The Forgotten Force Behind French Motorsports

IMRRC

March 14, 2023

Lucy O’Reilly Schell: The Forgotten Force Behind French Motorsports

In the hall of motorsports legends, some names roar louder than others. But every so often, a quieter story emerges – one that deserves the full-throttle spotlight. Lucy O’Reilly Schell, a pioneering team owner and driver, was one such figure. Her legacy, long overshadowed, is finally being rediscovered thanks to the passionate research of screenwriter Lauren Goodman.

Born in Paris in 1896 to an American father and French mother, Lucy inherited a substantial fortune from her family’s railroad empire. But wealth alone didn’t define her. During World War I, she served as a nurse at Val-de-Grâce military hospital, witnessing firsthand the brutal toll of war. That experience would later shape her fierce anti-fascist stance and her determination to elevate French motorsports on the world stage.

Her husband, Selim “Laurie” Schell, was a soft-spoken coachbuilder with a knack for design. Together, they formed a dynamic duo – racing in rallies like Monte Carlo and sharing driving duties. Their marriage was a true partnership, with Lucy often taking the lead both on and off the track.

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Lucy began racing seriously in her early 30s, quickly earning respect in the French press. She favored powerful French cars like Talbots and Delahayes, and her results spoke volumes. At the 1936 Monte Carlo Rally, she and Laurie placed second overall—missing victory by mere fractions.

Her pursuit of performance led her to Delahaye, a conservative manufacturer known for truck engines. Lucy’s bold request to combine a larger engine with a smaller chassis pushed the company into innovation. Her investment and influence helped birth the legendary Delahaye 135 CS, a car that would dominate endurance racing and rally circuits.

Spotlight

Lauren Goodman received her MFA in screenwriting from the College of Motion Pictures Arts at Florida State University.

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Synopsis

In this episode of The Logbook, our History of Motorsports series, featuring Lauren Goodman, she delves into the life and achievements of Lucy O’Reilly Schell. Born in 1896 in Paris, Lucy was a pioneering figure in French motorsports, known for her significant contributions as a rally driver and team owner. Goodman’s research, inspired by a Maserati Schell entered in the 1940 Indy 500, highlights Lucy’s legacy, from her early involvement in racing to her role in revolutionizing the Delahaye car company. Lucy and her husband Laurie were a powerful team, with Lucy emerging as a decisive driver and team manager, creating notable race car models and achieving significant victories. She also played a crucial role in promoting French motorsport internationally, notably at the Indianapolis 500. Despite the challenges and her eventual retreat from the sport, Lucy’s influence persisted through her son Harry, who continued the racing legacy. The presentation underscores Lucy’s underappreciated role in motorsport history and advocates for greater recognition of her contributions.

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Transcript

[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. The following episode is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce and the Arts Inger family, Lucy O’Reilly, shell Innovator of French Motorsports by Lauren.

Good. Lauren Goodman has received her MFA in screenwriting from the College of Motion Pictures Arts at Florida State University. While volunteering at the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, she encountered one of two Maseratis entered by Lucy Shell in the 1940 Indy 500 Ms. Goodman’s research into Lucy’s time in France as team owner and principal has been presented at the Revs.

Her writing draws heavily on history and the lives of women whose achievements have been overlooked. Presently, she’s developing Lucy’s story into a feature-length project. Ms. Goodman’s presentation will highlight Lucy’s role in motor racing [00:01:00] and her contributions to the sport. All right, folks. Next up is Lauren Goodman on Lucy Riley.

She. Well, good afternoon everyone. I’m so pleased to see so many faces here and online. Hello, out there in TV land. Hi mom. So a brief background about me in case we haven’t met before. My name’s Lauren Goodman and my background is not history, but in creative writing and filmmaking. My first love is story.

But during the pandemic, like a lot of us, I developed a new interest and specifically in cars that go really, really fast, and I started volunteering at the Revs Institute down in Naples, Florida, but it was while I was there, I encountered this beautiful. Eight cylinder Maserati that was entered in the 1940 Indie 500.

Now you can see on this car the French flag, the American flag. And then very curiously, this name [00:02:00] painted on the side, the l o r Shell special. And when I learned that the L there stands for Lucy, I had to know more. And it became kind of a passion for me and I, I’m looking forward to sharing her story with.

today’s presentation. I’m gonna give you a brief overview of her life and accomplishments. She was an established rally driver in her own right, but her real legacy was putting a little car company named Della Hay on the map in talking about Lucy’s work. We’re also gonna touch on her portrayal in the media at the time, and then later how she got ignored in some secondary sources about the history of Motorsport.

And finally, I’ll sum of just a few little thoughts about her. I. Lucy Marie Jean O’Reilly was born in Paris, October, 1896. Her father, Francis, was an American businessman whose own father had immigrated from Ireland, and the O’Reilly money came from building the railroads that were [00:03:00] the lifeblood of the gilded age.

Francis was already in his late forties when he decided to settle down in Paris with a young French widow, and when he died in 1937, he left Lucy her own personal. Now, Francis frequently traveled between Paris and Pennsylvania to attend business, but Lucy was 18 before she made her first trip to the us where in fact, in Redding, her arrival was news in the town paper.

And you can see here, she’s bringing news to the people of the town about her work as a nurse at the military hospital in Valgra, in Paris, really, when she was a teenager, she saw young men returning from the front suffering and sometimes dying from the wounds they received. And later in life, Lucy would again find herself locked in a battle with the Germans.

Another important character in this story is her husband. Whom she met around 1912, and they were married outside of Paris. In 1917, Celine Lawrence Shell, who was known [00:04:00] always as Lori, was born in Geneva to an American businessman and a family connection, gave them first employment at Butter Rosi. Some of you classic car lovers may know the name Butter Rosi.

In addition to war goods, they also constructed a few cars of their own, which were terrible, but he ended up also working for some coachwork around Paris, and he would provide a lot of coachwork for Lucy’s cars during her life. Here are the shells. They were a study in contrast. Lucy was gregarious, assertive.

Lori was soft spoken and diplomatic, but their egalitarian marriage made them a powerful team, both on and off the track. Lucy and Lori ran the Montecarlo rally together numerous times, sharing both navigational and driving responsibilities. And here they actually had a reporter come along with them one year, and he wrote a wonderful series of articles about his adventure with the shells as Renee d.

Who became very close to the couple later in life, wrote in his autobiography. There was no question, but that she was [00:05:00] absolutely an equal partner to Lori in their marriage. There was no subservient, no uns swerving, ob evasions, no pipe and slippers. Indeed, she was the driving force of the family. Lucy and Lori had two sons, Harry and Phillip.

Harry seems to have inherited the racing gene from both sides of the family and the Shell family resided both outside of Paris at Bruno and in. Lucy was already a mother and wife when she began to race. Seriously, her first race results show up in the French press in 1927, which would’ve made her about 31 years old.

Auto journalist Maurice. Felipe called her a decisive driver, and we can see she liked serious cars, serious French cars. That Talbot would’ve been branded as a DRock if sold in. At her very first hill climb in 1928, Lucy came first in her class. The reporter was surprised to see a woman that entered the race, but he said, if this little lady keeps at it, she’s gonna see some good results.

Good results. She didn’t indeed have. [00:06:00] Here’s just a selection of things I was able to pull from papers at the time. Now, Lucy’s specialty was the rally and the Monte Carlo was her white whale Lucy, with Lori’s code driver placed as high as P two. At the 1936 rally and lost out to a couple of Romanians in the strip down Ford by mere fractions of a point, it was her search for the right mix of performance, power, and reliability that led her to call on the factory offices at dhe.

At this point in time, Della Hay was a stuffy firm with a background in long-wearing sturdy truck engines. The general director of Della Hayes Factory, Charles’s wife. Known to everyone always as Mico Charl had grand plans to lead this company into a new era. Key to this plan were his engineer Jean, and a plan to break into the market for high-end high performance sports cars.

De Hay unveiled two new super lux models at the 1933 Barry Auto Salon, the 12 Chao [00:07:00] and the 18 Chao. These two super lux models were really just older models with updated suspension, but the stir in the press was enough that it caught Lucy’s attention. She appeared with Lori and Toe at the offices of Mr.

Charl to order a special, she wanted the bigger engine of the 18 shiau put into the smaller chassis of the 12. Mr. Charl said, no, no, no. It’s possible. The reason he said it wasn’t possible, it was because his engineer, John swa was trying to figure out how to, uh, do just that so Del Hay could start its own Factory Works team.

However, I will point out here that when Mr. Charl went to test his Factory Works team specials, Lucy still managed to outperform them in her regular car. So he decided, you know what, maybe she is after all the best owner for one of my. You’ll, I’ll also note here that de Hay wanted to further prove the merit of their new cars by showcasing one of their specials in a few world record [00:08:00] attempts.

They were actually able to set a few world records at Mare. One for the 10,000 kilometers and one four of the 48 hours. It was going really, really well, beating records previously held by Reno, and this was enough. That before Jean could finish constructing De Hay’s first real sports car, the 1 35, Lucy had already ordered six and she called on six of her wealthiest friends to order some as well.

And that Ready Cash enabled de hay to build a works team. So by way of thanks, they built Lucy a competition spec of the 1 35, the 1 35 Cs, which would become one of the most important race cars ever to come out of. Lucy was a determined, gregarious, and well-connected person. She was already becoming a team owner in all but name.

So for this little fleet of 1 35 css, she decided it was gonna be her own team, which she dubbed Blue Buzz. And it premiered at the 1936 pais rally writer [00:09:00] Neil Baskim in his fabulous book, faster Asserts that her dismal performance during the Hill Climb portion of the Paice gave Lucy pause about her own driving career and inspired her to focus solely on team management.

She recruited Renee Dreyfus as lead driver, and Renee is one of the great talents ever to come out of France. Dreyfus had a proven track record as a Grand Prix winner, having driven for Bugatti and Maser. and even having an offer from Ferrari. But then Mussolini decided he didn’t want a Frenchman in his Italian car, and the only other serious team in Grand Prix racing at that time were the Germans.

And the Germans didn’t want a Jewish guy in their car, but Lucy surprised Renee and said, hello, how would you like to join me? It’s gonna be totally. Don’t worry. And Renee has a wonderful observation about this meeting, how she just kind of wouldn’t sourceful people and get them on her side. So I’ll say at this point, a note about the Del Hay, really, even though the 1 35 was a [00:10:00] sports car, it was essentially using a modified truck engine.

And this might have been laughable except it gave the car incredible reliability. Jean focused on, listen, I’m gonna make the car as light as possible to increase the torque and take it from. You’ll see here I have some results for the 1 35 Cs. You’ll note that it’s both under the team name Blu Buzz, and sometimes it was run under her later team name, a Keri Blue, but in rallies and in speed races and in endurance races.

This car was really marvelous. That was going well, but the outlook for French victory and thee of the European calendar was grim. Of the championship Grand Prix run in 1936. No French car finished in the top five for a country that had once produced delage and more. This was hugely embarrassing. The anxiety that the Germans felt about national pride also is happening [00:11:00] in France.

The A C F, which was the governing body for Motorsport in France, and the French press got together and made a. They enlisted. The government’s help to raise money for the cause of French Glory on the track. Attacks on every new driver’s license went into the Fond kus. A new Grand Prix formula was set to begin in 1937, and the ACF was giving French automakers an incentive to create a costly new race car.

A prize of 1 million fk. To the constructor who could post the fastest time on the track at Montey. At this point, I wanna point out, Della Hay had already closed down its Factory Works team. There were a couple bad wrecks. The Grand Prix, DeMar and mis Charl kind of lost his stomach for it. But after the announcement of the Million Franc Prize, Lucy paid another visit to the offices of Mis Charl.

She had decided to create her own Grand Prix team, and she would pay DE to build her a car for the million front contest. Sean swa, busy himself building a brand new car with a brand new engine from the [00:12:00] ground up when Lucy busy to herself running the 1 35 Cs in various events. And finally, when this new DHE was ready to test and was unveiled, they kept it a quiet affair per Peter Stevenson.

The car was ugly, but boy could it go. It only took, drive us a few laps to decide this ugly car was instead truly be. And in it, he managed to drive it and outperform Bugatti to win the Million Frog Prize. With this creation of this new Grand Prix car, the 1 45, as well as all the victories already under Lucy’s belt with the 1 35 Cs de hay was celebrated as the return of French glory to the track.

When here you can see Mr. Charl giving Renee Dreyfus APIC kiss and later being made an officer in the Legion of Honor in recognition for those efforts. But the big. Was yet to come. You see adoption of the new formula for the Grand Prix was pushed back to 38, and DHE still had to prove itself against German teams.

At the 1938 season opener at Poe, it was [00:13:00] the little David of Della Hay with its Jewish driver and American money against the Goliath. Of Mercedes with lots of money from Hitler. I can only imagine how Renee Dreyfus felt when he crossed that line in first place. He then went on to win at Cork, and this would be a pinnacle for this new Grand Prix team that Carrie bla.

Now if you’re wondering where Lucy was at Poe, she wasn’t at that time, major Concor and the niece, so were hopping on the coat. Dessert sources report that at least four of the V12 engines went into touring cars. Carl say, by the likes of Ficon. And she, car manufacturing is a business. After all, Lucy’s wins both on the track and at the Concor Show that Della Hay is the peak of performance and style.

And here she is modeling her winning cars along with her English bull. Who was also award-winning these Grand Prix victories, as well as other finishes with the 1 45 Equipped as a sports car. Eventually made Dreyfus the champion of France for 1938 and [00:14:00] unfortunately Mercedes and Auto Union dominated from mid-season on, and the ACF decided, well, we need another distribution from the phone to cos.

To jumpstart more innovation. They decided this time to award the funds, the constructor, showing the most promising plans for a future car. They ended up awarding those funds to Talbot Lago. To say that Lucy was enraged would be an understatement in protest. Lucy withdrew her team, the Kerry Blue from the French Grmp Ram, as it was hosted by the acf.

This cost an uproar in the papers without de hay. Surely the deck is stacked against French constructors at our home. The sentiments were roughly how could this lady do this to us? How fickle is the press lading her just a few months earlier as a hero for France? Now the ACF then tried to strong Arm Lucy and Le Carry Blue back into the Grand Prix.

By stipulating with that withdrawal would also mean they were disqualified from the Constructor’s championship. Lucy wrote an open letter to them in the press [00:15:00] and what’s truly incredible here is we have her own words about her ownership and leadership of the team. She is the interested. , she makes the decisions.

It’s her call now. Lucy eventually changed her team name to Lake Huie, Lu O’Reilly Shell. She was clearly irritated with the a CF and wanted to remind them who exactly had made those victories happen. 1939 was a tough year for her. The next iteration of the Della Hay car, the 1 55, never fully materialized.

And in 1939, Lucy had to run the previous seasons one 40 fives against a Mercedes with an updated. . By the time the team arrived in Switzerland for the Grand Prix, Lucy switched her team to Maserati. I think it’s very telling. She didn’t choose another French mark at home, tragedy struck. Lori was killed in a car accident that also badly injured.

Lucy Renee Dreyfus stood by her sons at the funeral because she was still in hospital during Lori’s funeral, and then he hit packed up and reported back to base because after all, France was at [00:16:00] war, but it didn’t keep her down Long. Within a month, she’d contacted Dreyfus because she had a new plan. She was gonna send a French team to compete in Indianapolis 500, bringing more attention to the the French cause to the isolationist us.

Now I’m gonna use this moment to plug for the Revs Institute down in Florida. Not only is the collection incredible, but we have an app and a website with lots of stories and pictures and videos. So if you wanna know what happens to our team at Indy 500, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to go to Revs Institute dot.

Now, Lucy wasn’t well enough to make the Atlantic crossing by the time it happened, but that’s perhaps fortunate because no women were allowed in the pits. Dreyfus later were called how his teammate’s timekeeper, who also happened to be his wife, was built a special tower so she might watch the driver without setting foot in the forbidden zone.

That wouldn’t have been good enough for Madam Shell. Renee later wrote she would’ve been picketing gasoline alley as icky. Shell battled Rain on the Speedway, Paris. Fell to the [00:17:00] Nazis after the 500. Lucy instructed the team to sell the Maseratis and she herself decamped her home in Monaco. She did not return to motor sports after the war, at least not officially.

By 1947, her son Harry, was making a name for himself on the European sports car circuits. Harry would go on to be the first American in the newly organized Formula one championship. He later would enter cars, sometimes under the name bl, keeping his mom’s team alive in motor. Looking at that Maserati she sent to Indie, which was an Italian car with Franco American Livery and her Irish name on the side.

You might wonder how Lucy felt about her nationality and any contemporary would’ve been forgiven for thinking the shells were French nationals speaking fluently. Yet the shells and their sons considered themselves American. Through and through. They are listed as American in every race, entry and result.

And here we even have her. I’m an American. I love automobiles, and I love. And I had wanted to contribute to the. A French [00:18:00] prestige. I think also briefly interesting was I saw how Lucy really intended that the O’Reilly name, her name, would be carried on on his birth record at the US Consulate. Harry’s last name is capitalized as O’Reilly.

Shell and Harry himself often use O’Reilly and was listed in under o alphabetically. And uh, that’s his draft card. It kind of reminds me of his delivery on his mom’s. And in fact, during Lucy and Lori’s lifetime, the International Herald Tribune referred to them as Mr. And Mrs. O’Reilly Shell, when of course Lori was not an O’Reilly.

I thought that was pretty interesting. I know we didn’t get a chance to go too in depth, but I just wanna thank you so much for having me here today and I just hope I’ve piqued your interest about Lucy and her life. And believe me, there’s a lot more there to discover and I hope I’ve left Yes. Time for any questions if there.

I read the book Faster. Uhhuh , and fascinating book. Everyone should read it. I [00:19:00] thought I knew a lot about that period of racing, but never heard of Luci O’Neill shell until I read the book. And then you also expounded on someone, her other accomplishments that the book didn’t mention. Other women got their due during that time period.

Do you have any theories why? Historians have pretty much forgotten about her. I think it’s interesting. I lighted a little bit for time, some of the mentions of her in the press, in a press clipping that I had up and I can bring up again. Basically, the reporter mentioned everything about the creation of her new Grand Prix team and talked to everyone, miss Charl, Renee Dreyfus, and her husband, and never actually mentioned her even when in the article.

Mis Charl said, this team isn’t mine. The woman, the madam, she created it and the reporter still never bothered to talk to her. I found too later that in some secondary sources, they might mention Lori as being running the team when that just wasn’t true. From the primary sources we have was kind of incredible to me, and I couldn’t, honestly, I can’t make sense of it [00:20:00] because to me it’s like trying to tell the history of Mercedes F.

And not mentioning Total Wolf. It’s like trying to talk about Red Bull racing and making only a passing reference to a Mr. Ginger Spice is how I feel about that. So I think there was some intentional, and I think also sometimes people just received common wisdom. How much do you think Lucy’s family Fortune played a role in her life in motor sports?

It was everything. It was everything. Do you think she would’ve had the same role in motor sports without it? No. No. Or. Not any why? Because money created Access. Women didn’t have acc. Now, there were a lot of women driving at that time. Women ownership. It really was her money creating it. I think she inherited about, in that day’s money, about 9 million bucks when her dad died.

And that’s in, you know, 1930s money. So you can only imagine maybe 150 million today. That she had to spend. I was just, uh, wondering that card, the indie card that’s in the museum, yeah’s, they at Revs. And was it damaged a museum from the hurricane [00:21:00] or anything? Oh, no. Every, everything at Revs is great. Okay.

So please come on down. In fact, they’re having a conference there next weekend. Yep. Yep. Just a couple of statements. I believe that she sold the two cars to Lou Moore. The race of Indies is correct. Yeah. Harry, her son was killed practicing her Grand Prix in 1955. He was, he was driving for, I believe it was, uh, the Yeoman credit union.

It was Sterling Moss’s outfit. Yes. During free practice. Now, when she got Dreyfus out of. France, he was already in the French Army and mm-hmm. . I understand that they let him go because he was going to Indianapolis. Yeah. How much of that was a plan to get a Jewish driver out of France before the Germans caught him?

That’s a really interesting question. And it’s something I haven’t found yet, but it doesn’t mean the answer’s not there. There’s in fact stacks of her letters that just have never been digitized. We know for sure that Dreyfus himself says, my friends told me not to come back after Indie. I, he didn’t [00:22:00] say which friends though.

She was a confirmed anti-fascist at the point that there were certain French who were pro fascists. So yeah, absolutely. I, I love so much the little news clipping about her work as a nurse and talking about the French battle against the Germans and really the arrival of the French drivers for Indy 500 was a media spectacle.

And Dreyfus actually gave out signed headshot of him and his military uniform. So it really was sort of the, there was public pressure against the Minister of Information to release these two drivers, Renee Dreyfus and the other man I didn’t mention, Renee Le Beg as sort of promotion for France and for the French War effort.

And it was important. Thank you very much. Thank you. First, thanks for filling in the blank and my personal knowledge about who Harry Shell was and where he came from. Yeah, I always wondered about that. I’m just picking up the last comments. You didn’t mention that Ren Prefu when he ended up here in USA became well known Lehan Clair issue.

His restaurant was Shawn Claire. Mm-hmm. In, in New York. I had the [00:23:00] dining there once. Yeah. His autobiography is, honestly, it’s terrific. I highly recommend it. So when are you making a movie of her story? I, this is what I’m hoping. I’m hoping the more people get excited about it, the more there’s a ground swell, and I think there’s a real hunger for stories like this to me.

One of the things I learned when I learned about Lucy is, yeah, she was rather unique in terms of being a team owner and principle of a Grand Prix team. But in terms of being a driver, every time I went to the French papers to look for results, anytime a woman was allowed to race, there are madams and.

Scattered through the results, they’re all there. And, um, I, I had no. Just another comment. When, uh, Wil Shaw persuaded his car owner to buy the H ctf, the year before Cotton Hennings, their mechanic changed the firing order on that car to smooth it out. And it was, uh, more successful in Indianapolis to say the least.

[00:24:00] Mm-hmm. . Now, the car that at Res now belonged to Dean Butler at one time. Mm-hmm. , and he got his. To change the firing order also, and I was at Milwaukee when email Andrews, who I believe came in second in that car to Indianapolis, drove it again, and he came in and said how great it was if it had been that good in indeed to won the race.

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I wanna say too, not only did Lucy get Renee Dreyfus into America out of France, but also Luigi tti, who is the reserve driver on that. And he stayed in America, of course, founded North America Racing Team. Thank you, Lauren. Yeah, thanks,

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Lucy didn’t just race – she built teams. Her first was dubbed “Blue Buzz,” later renamed Écurie Bleue. She recruited top talent like René Dreyfus, a Jewish Grand Prix winner sidelined by Mussolini and the Nazis. Lucy offered him a professional home when others turned him away.

Her Delahayes, though powered by modified truck engines, were marvels of reliability and torque. With Dreyfus at the wheel, the team won the prestigious Million Franc Prize in 1937, defeating Bugatti and restoring French pride.

Politics, Prestige, and Protest

Despite her success, Lucy faced institutional resistance. When the French motorsports governing body awarded future development funds to Talbot-Lago instead of Delahaye, Lucy withdrew Écurie Bleue from the French Grand Prix in protest. Her open letter to the press made it clear: she was the team’s principal, not a figurehead.

In 1939, with war looming and her husband tragically killed in a car accident, Lucy pivoted again – this time sending a French team to the Indianapolis 500. Her goal: to rally American support for France. Though she couldn’t attend due to injury (and women weren’t allowed in the pits), her presence was felt. Dreyfus and Luigi Chinetti raced under her banner, and the spectacle made headlines.

Legacy on the Track and Beyond

Lucy never returned to motorsports after WWII, but her son Harry Shell carried the torch. He became the first American to race in the newly formed Formula One championship, often using the name O’Reilly Shell to honor his mother’s legacy.

Lucy’s story is one of grit, vision, and defiance. She was an American who loved France, a woman who built teams when few others could, and a strategist who challenged the status quo. Her contributions to motorsports were monumental – and it’s time they were recognized as such.

Lauren Goodman, who discovered Lucy’s story while volunteering at the REVS Institute, is now developing a feature-length film about her life. With stacks of undigitized letters and untold anecdotes still waiting to be explored, Lucy’s story is far from over.

As Goodman said, “It’s like trying to tell the history of Mercedes F1 without mentioning Toto Wolff.” Lucy O’Reilly Schell wasn’t just part of the story – she was the story.

This episode is sponsored in part by: The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), The Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argetsinger Family – and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

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Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History

The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), partnering with the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), presents the annual Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History. The Symposium established itself as a unique and respected scholarly forum and has gained a growing audience of students and enthusiasts. It provides an opportunity for scholars, researchers and writers to present their work related to the history of automotive competition and the cultural impact of motor racing. Papers are presented by faculty members, graduate students and independent researchers.The history of international automotive competition falls within several realms, all of which are welcomed as topics for presentations, including, but not limited to: sports history, cultural studies, public history, political history, the history of technology, sports geography and gender studies, as well as archival studies.

The symposium is named in honor of Michael R. Argetsinger (1944-2015), an award-winning motorsports author and longtime member of the Center's Governing Council. Michael's work on motorsports includes:

Walt Hansgen: His Life and the History of Post-war American Road Racing (2006)
Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed (2009)
Formula One at Watkins Glen: 20 Years of the United States Grand Prix, 1961-1980 (2011)
An American Racer: Bobby Marshman and the Indianapolis 500 (2019)

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EVs, Hybrids, and Heated Seats: A No-Holds-Barred Debate on What to Buy Next

Tania M

March 7, 2023

EVs, Hybrids, and Heated Seats: A No-Holds-Barred Debate on What to Buy Next

Welcome back to another rousing episode of What Should I Buy? – where our panel of Break/Fix petrol heads tackle the car-buying conundrum with humor, honesty, and a healthy dose of skepticism. This time, we’re diving into the EV market from a woman’s point of view, exploring what it means to be a first-time buyer, a seasoned collector, or just someone trying to make sense of the modern car landscape.

Our guests range from vintage car lovers to EV owners, each bringing a unique perspective:

Sara Lacey (A Girl’s Guide to Cars) drives a Tesla Model Y and owns a 1982 Porsche 911 SC.
Carolyn Ford (Tech Transforms podcast) is EV-curious but skeptical.
Emily Fox (GTM Sports Club) daily-drives a Volvo XC40 Recharge and restores a 1967 MGBGT.
Chrissy Crutchfield owns a VW ID.4 and a new Toyota Tundra.
Kat DeLorean (DNG Motors) is a vocal critic of EV policy and a champion of open-source car design.

Carolyn (above) wants to be a good global citizen – but she’s impatient, hates waiting at charging stations, and needs a car that can handle Utah’s snowy mountains and desert drives. The group quickly pivots from “What should I buy?” to “What should I NOT buy?” – and EVs take a hit.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Kat doesn’t hold back: “If you brought me on here to convince you to get an EV, you called the wrong guest.” She raises concerns about battery replacement costs, grid instability, and the environmental impact of lithium mining. Emily and Sara counter with practical use cases, but even they acknowledge the limitations.

Shopping Criteria

In this episode, a panel of female petrol heads and EV owners, including Sara Lacey, Carolyn Ford, Emily Fox, Chrissy Crutchfield, and Kat DeLorean, participate in a lively discussion aimed at helping a first-time car buyer choose the best vehicle. The group explores the pitfalls of the car buying experience, highlights the complexities of modern car choices, and debates the merits of EVs versus hybrids. The conversation includes the panelists’ personal car ownership experiences and addresses concerns related to EV infrastructure, environmental impact, and technological advancements. The participants also examine practical considerations for potential EV buyers, such as home charging setups and the cost of car maintenance. Ultimately, the episode offers valuable insights and practical tips for anyone looking to navigate the ever-expanding automotive marketplace, especially from the perspective of environmentally conscious consumers.

Carolyn – has been considering a new car, but cost is a factor; she even went and test drove a Tesla recently – thoughts?
Let’s address the elephant in the room – is anyone here suffering from range anxiety? Is this even a “thing” anymore?
Living with EVs today; what did you choose and why? What are the positives and negatives of owning an EV (pun intended)
Let’s talk about “the car buying experience” in general. Do you prefer going to a dealership or car show or some other venue to check out new cars? Are dealerships still relevant? Should we move to online ordering?
Kat – building her own supercar – how tough is the decision right now, petrol, hybrid or EV. Which direction are you taking the JZD in?
Cost is always a huge concern… Thoughts on what EVs are going for? Are they priced appropriately? Should they be cheaper?
TESLA vs The World
Thoughts on EVs – which one, why?

Highlights

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

00:00 Introduction to the Panel and Debate
00:19 The Car Buying Experience
00:55 Diverse Perspectives on Car Ownership
02:59 Challenges of EV Ownership
06:30 Environmental Impact and Future of EVs
13:53 Technological Innovations and Maintenance Issues
25:23 Exploring EV Brands and Options
39:58 EV Tires and Efficiency
40:33 Volkswagen ID4 Experience
41:05 Adaptive Cruise Control Debate
43:00 Volvo EV Insights
43:51 Considering Plug-in Hybrids
45:27 Navigating Car Dealerships
49:58 Evaluating Classic Car EV Conversions
58:10 Charging Infrastructure Challenges
01:02:57 New Car Features and Tech
01:11:21 Final Thoughts on EV Purchases
01:14:04 Dream EVs and Closing Remarks

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Our panel of break fix petrolheads are back for another rousing what should I buy debate. Using unique shopping criteria, they are challenged to find our first time collector the best vehicle that will make their friends go. Where’d you get that? Or what the hell is wrong with you? At the next Cars and Coffee.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, the dreaded car buying experience. No matter who you are, it’s probably a safe bet this isn’t your ideal way to spend your weekend. In and out of dealerships, the hassle, haggling, the decision making. When confronted with car buying in today’s modern world, there are just so many more choices besides make model and what color do I want.

Now it’s which power source do I want? To what level does it drive itself? Which creature comforts and gizmos are available for subscription? Am I Apple or Android? Even before so many choices, men and women have traditionally approached this experience differently for a multitude of reasons, some spanning use cases, from the mom van to car enthusiasts.

Today, we will be diving deeper into what should I buy from a lady’s point of view, [00:01:00] focusing on the new car buyer versus car collector demographic, and even more specifically, EV buyers. Our group of extraordinary Petrolhead panelists range from veteran car reviewers to prospective buyers, as well as ladies already living with EVs.

We’re here to explore what to look for in today’s EV car market. Joining us tonight, we have some returning Brake Fix guests. Please welcome Sara Lacey from A Girl’s Guide to Cars, Carolyn Ford from the Tech Transforms podcast, Grand Touring Motorsports. Sports Club members, Emily Fox and Chrissy Crutchfield, as well as special guest Kat Thelorean from DNG Motors.

Welcome to the show, ladies.

Emily Fox: Hello. Thanks for having me. Hello.

Executive Producer Tania: Thank you. Hi. We’re here to talk cars. Where are we in our car journeys? So I’ll start. I am not an EV car owner. That’s what our main focus of discussing is tonight. I am, in fact, not even a new car owner. All my cars are aged. [00:02:00] If you will,

Chrissy Crutchfield: for historic tags, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I got one on historics already. Another I could put on historics this year and my daily driver, I can’t put on historics, but it would be ready in two years. So

Kat DeLorean: I’m right there with you. I don’t have an EV or any real new cars. I think my newest car is 2017. I’ve owned a hybrid before, but all of my cars are internal combustion.

Emily Fox: I own many cars. I actually own a new car. I own a 2022 XC40 Recharge, smaller size SUV, and I freaking love this thing. This is my daily driver. And I also have a 1967 MGBGT, which has the interior pulled apart, so I’m currently in the middle of year two of redoing it. But, Buying the SUV EV was perfect for me.

I’ve got two girls. I need to carry all their soccer stuff around and all their girl scout stuff everywhere, all over Maryland every weekend. And it works perfectly for that. Going to the grocery store, whatever it is that I need. It does take a while [00:03:00] to fill up, but for a daily task car, and you’re only going maybe an hour, an hour and a half out of your.

Regular charting area. It’s not too bad.

Executive Producer Tania: So Emily’s winning our oldest car prize. I was winning until Emily spoke. So

Chrissy Crutchfield: Chrissy, we have the Volkswagen ID for first edition and we just got a new Toyota Tundra, but obviously that’s off topic and we have two others, mostly older cars. I’m excited to share and make suggestions even because there’s a few that I’m actually interested in.

Carolyn Ford: I am not a new car owner either. My car is a 2016, but I did buy my son for his first car, a hybrid. He’s still driving it right now. It’s a 2005. I’ll have to ask him how many miles. I feel like it had almost 150, 000 miles on it when I bought it. And I live in Utah. We just got dumped on with snow like 15 inches.

Like, he gets to where he needs to go in this little Prius, which always shocks me.

Kat DeLorean: That was my hybrid. It was a [00:04:00] Prius. I loved it. It was my fun little clown car.

Carolyn Ford: Yeah, he loves his and I drive a CR V because I do a lot of outdoor things and like, I’m going up the mountain to ski. So I need room for my skis and everything.

And I’m always worried that I won’t be able to get to where I need to go, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem. He snowboards, he’s taken it up into the mountains. So I’m very interested. In a pure EV and I’m lazy and impatient, and I don’t want to have to wait at a charging station for 45 minutes. So I can’t wait to have you guys help me get over these big hesitations for an EV because I want one.

Executive Producer Tania: Sara, round us off.

Sara Lacey: Okay. I have a 2021 Tesla model Y and I have a 1982 Porsche 911 SC.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, as we dive into this outdoors. You want to take it into the mountains, you want to load your ski or snowboard gear in it, you’re lazy, you’re [00:05:00] impatient, you don’t want to wait three hours at the charger station.

Carolyn Ford: Well, and I go to the desert, so my runs like to the desert from my house, it’s a three, three and a half hour ride.

I’m going to have to stop and charge halfway there, right? And how long is that going to take, Emily?

Emily Fox: Uh, a while, depending on what kind of car you buy. And depends on what year it is. Because if they actually do anything about the EV charging grid across the continental United States, it might get a little bit better.

But right now, it’ll take you a really long time if you can find a charger on your way there and back.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly. So ladies and gentlemen listening, we are quickly devolving into what should I not buy and that’s an EV car.

Carolyn Ford: That has something to say

Kat DeLorean: here though. Talk me into it. You’re shaking your head. No, I’m shaking my head because if you brought me on here to convince you to get an EV, he called the wrong guest.

No, I think

Carolyn Ford: I wanted you to convince me because I want to be a good global citizen [00:06:00] and do my part.

Kat DeLorean: My question is, is with all of these requirements and concerns and your experience thus far with a car that was purchased with 150, 000 miles on it, why are you going EV and not hybrid? That’s

Carolyn Ford: what I want to ask you guys, like right now.

I just heard a story on NPR that totally crapped all over the hybrids and said, we got to do better and go into the full EV, but I agree with you. Like the hybrid seems like a really good way to go.

Emily Fox: It’s not for everyone.

Kat DeLorean: There’s a lot of things that go into EVs being greener. And there’s a lot of things that are going into what’s happening with EVs right now.

While you may want to get an EV eventually, that’ll meet all the needs that you have, you’re not necessarily a bad global citizen for going hybrid because an EV right now doesn’t meet your needs. Also, in order for the electricity that’s charging your EV to be greener, it has to come from a greener source.

than the [00:07:00] gasoline or in some way. That

Carolyn Ford: was another big question of mine.

Kat DeLorean: How do you know that what you’re charging with isn’t doing just as much damage? If you want to be a good steward of the environment, work to offset the carbon you use until you can get something that can be a fully neutral vehicle.

Don’t try and change your entire life just because you want something that everybody else will look at you and go, Ooh, look, she’s doing great for the environment.

Sara Lacey: It’s a great way of putting it. Well, and I think that that speaks to the idea that there’s a discrepancy between what is available and what people can manage in their daily lives.

And there is something to wanting to speak via your wallet. You know, I’m going to purchase an EV because I know that maybe everything I want in an EV isn’t there yet, but I want to push that forward by purchasing an EV or a plugin hybrid at this. Stage of the game, there’s a lot of gray area to consider for this.

[00:08:00] And I do think that your feelings are valid that yes, you do want to be a global citizen and recognizing that it’s not maybe a hundred percent the right choice for you right now, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t also find something that bridges that gap. Day to day, we’re just seeing so many more models.

We’re seeing so many improvements in infrastructure, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Charging stations are tough. Understanding and being a consumer in this environment is tough. We all have to become electrical engineers all of a sudden. It’s a very early time in the life of EVs. So you have to be patient with yourself.

And unfortunately, you have to do a lot of homework. I don’t want you to, uh, lazy shame yourself. It’s just a lot of information to take on right now.

Kat DeLorean: Yeah. I have a question about the environmental impact of EVs. So I buy an EV. Let’s say I buy, I think it was a Chevy Bolt, which is about 20, 000. And in [00:09:00] eight years, With an internal combustion engine, I would have turned around and sold that car or a hybrid with 150, 000 miles on it, and it would have continued to live on.

But in eight years, it’s going to cost somebody who spent 20, 000 on a car 15, 000 to replace the battery. So you’re creating a bunch of throwaway cars. while harvesting all of the lithium from our planet and these toxic chemicals that create death napalm when they catch on fire to save the planet.

You’re who I needed to talk

Carolyn Ford: to.

Kat DeLorean: I feel

Carolyn Ford: better

Kat DeLorean: about myself. I’m telling you that I am not the person to convince you to buy an EV. Also, our electric infrastructure can’t support our air conditioning. Do you guys know what happens when you bring three electric Cadillacs into a dealership at once? You can’t plug them all in or the whole dealership goes dark.

It’s not just the charging stations. We don’t currently make enough electricity to support every single person plugging car into their house. So we can’t push EVs for every single [00:10:00] person when there are other options that we had available to us to put our research towards and They’re not available for us to buy now.

And I have feelings about the fact that they’re going to be delaying

Sara Lacey: them. Because I feel like too, that is yet another piece that’s moving along. You know, it feels like a snail’s pace for a lot of us, but when I was at the Chicago auto show and there was a woman there from Con Ed speaking, and she was talking about how, what we have to remember is that every single person isn’t going to plug in every single night.

And crash the grid, granted, she’s in the Midwest. She’s not speaking from the standpoint of someone in California, where you have to manage things like brownouts and whatever. And one of our writers on our website, she just bought this really cool solar generator. In the event of a brownout, she’s still going to have the option to charge her car from the solar generator.

So it’s yet another piece. That we’re seeing a lot of development taking [00:11:00] place. I think it’s important that we recognize too, that that kind of information and those things change on a month to month basis, things are changing. They’re figuring things out. We still don’t really know for sure how recycling these batteries is going to work, and we don’t know for sure what that cost ultimately will be.

We’re facing a massive, massive phase of early adoption. We just really haven’t seen that on this scale. So it’s hard to know

Kat DeLorean: we’re not creating throwaway batteries. We’re creating throwaway entire cars. That’s my problem with it. It’d be one thing if we were just causing an issue with recycling the batteries, but it’s causing the cars to be something we just toss away.

I don’t know how much people on this call. No. There is an existence, a hydrogen peroxide engine that was developed and quashed because of EV policymakers. So again, I have very, very strong feelings about what’s happened in the EV world.

Executive Producer Tania: You mentioned people probably aren’t going to plug in every night. I don’t know if [00:12:00] that’s true or not.

Chrissy Crutchfield: I plug in every night.

Executive Producer Tania: I would, I do. I don’t have to. But I do, you know, they’re pushing the trend toward, you know, everyone’s no longer building internal combustion engines by the year last year, you know, and it’s Evie or die, you’re going to have multi Evie cars in your home. Someone’s going to be plugging in every night.

You’re right. The grids can’t handle it. We’ve seen this in the last couple of years, the huge outages in Texas where everyone was freezing to death because the grids couldn’t support it. And they’re their own special case of owning their own infrastructure and electricity. So we won’t go there, but nonetheless, there’s always brownouts and blackouts in California and this, that, and the other, that is a big problem.

And Kat, to your point, what’s always seems to be missed as a life cycle analysis. which is literally from

the

Executive Producer Tania: very beginning of the smallest component that goes into the car to what happens when it is put in the crusher at the landfill and put back into the earth. I still haven’t gotten a good read on what that is [00:13:00] versus your traditional ice engine car.

I mean, a lot of the components are the same. You’ve got the frames and the body panels and all that, but you just have so many more electronics that are specialized that we know aren’t Great to just throw out into the oceans, right? I’m not necessarily convinced either that 100 percent way that the future should go.

I think there’s room for them, and I think they have great use cases, and there are great times they should be applied. But just like your finances, you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You need to diversify. So there’s still room for our hybrids, even more than regular ice engines. And there’s also homes for EVs as well as hydrogen engines.

Hopefully if they can, you know, solve the impending Hindenburg issues and whatever other, you know, technology Dutch are trying to put solar panels on the tops of cars and you can run them for an hour a day or whatever. There’s all this going on. It’s a complicated answer.

Emily Fox: It is, but you bring up a really interesting point that I don’t think a lot of people actually [00:14:00] think about when they’re talking about what kind of car should I buy is the ability of you to maintain or work on your own car.

We’ve had gas powered motors. For such a long period of time, decades upon decades, culturally, in that era of growing up, there was a reasonable expectation that you as the owner of your car were responsible for the maintenance of it. And it wasn’t until you got mass market production of all of these kinds of vehicles in like the 1980s and the 1990s that you started to see this, as Kat put it, this throwaway kind of mentality associated with cars, you go to a specialty shop to do a repair on it.

You’re not necessarily doing it. Yourself, you’re not being taught those skills. The next natural iteration of that, as you modernize engines to be more efficient, to do more, to do amazing things of whatever anybody wants it to be in saving the environment, you’re taking away the ability to be self maintaining on your own vehicle.

You’re abstracting that. And you see that today in a lot of technology concepts, going from writing on something with a paper, pen and [00:15:00] pad to actually scribbling on your iPad with it, and how many layers of extraction and tactile difference. You’re losing over the course of that. And when that happens, there is no life cycle assessment because we’ve not been around long enough to say that there’s somebody that can actually work on EVs and recycle those batteries and reuse those parts and rebuild those parking sensors by themselves.

Executive Producer Tania: And then when it’s an uphill battle, because there’s. For years now, actually, I think there’s been groups that are trying to advocate the anti right to work. You’re not allowed to work on your car. You have to go bring it to a service station or auto dealer, whoever it is. I hate

Emily Fox: that. I hate that so much.

Kat DeLorean: That’s terrible. I hope that never passes. That’s actually something that we’re working very, very hard on in the design of our car. I love working on my car for Many reasons, my car is one of the best engineered cars ever. That C7 is just beautiful. And the weight distribution, it’s an incredible car. I can’t get in there.

It’s too tight. My husband and I have been talking about this loss of a design. 50 percent of kids today, they don’t [00:16:00] want cars. And we believe part of it is because you have that loss of tactile relationship with it. You can no longer work on your cars. And so one of the questions I said to my technology engineers was, can we Minecraft the car or Linux the car?

Make it open source, take it to somewhere where we can open source, right? Start to actually work on our cars. Because not only do you have this battery obsolescence, you’ve planned obsolescence in the technology. You’re not going to have these cars supported their computers on wheels. And so what happens when windows goes end of life and it’s no longer supported, you can’t get updates and the what’s going to happen to these cars.

There is a throwaway. Whereas you can still buy a 64 GTO today. There is an absolute death point on these cars where they will not be able to be revived, no matter what you do now with hybrids, you have an interesting situation where if this hybrid dies, you can actually rebuild it. With a mid engine internal combustion engine.

[00:17:00] So there is an opportunity for at least some of these cars to be repurposed. And I do believe that if you start to think about that in these EV cars, okay. When it dies, it’s going to die. How do we create something that can be turned into something else?

Carolyn Ford: Is the throwaway thing true with all EVs or just the lower end?

Like Sara’s Tesla, is it going to die in eight years? You’re going to have to pay tens of

Kat DeLorean: thousands of dollars for a new battery.

Sara Lacey: The question becomes, do you, at the end of that, however many, 120, 000 miles, do you want to spend 000 to get a new battery pack? Or do you want to let the car go and get something different or a new one?

Whatever you decide you want to do at that point. But one of the things I wanted to touch on about that was that there’s a debate going on right now too about technology and cars. And this goes a little bit beyond the EV discussion, but in Germany, BMW [00:18:00] is creating subscription based features. Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: Mercedes

Sara Lacey: too. Yes.

Carolyn Ford: What do you mean subscription based features like radio?

Emily Fox: You want to go faster? You pay.

Executive Producer Tania: You pay a monthly fee for your heated seats.

Kat DeLorean: What?

Carolyn Ford: No.

Kat DeLorean: Uh huh.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s just one example.

Kat DeLorean: I’m curious what the real return on investment of that is, because the infrastructure to support that Has to be massive.

Are you really making that much money? I guess. I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: People have gotten so hooked in the last, I don’t know how many years you want to call it, with this pay to play. And the younger generation is like addicted to that, because all your video gaming systems, it’s no longer I go to the store and I just Spend 50 bucks, I have a game, and I have the entire game.

No, it’s, I spend 50 bucks, and I have a quarter of the game, and then like, every two months, I have to pay 25. [00:19:00] I can level up. To get like, the next 10 minutes of playtime. And then, on top of that, like, 1. 99 here, and 1. 99 there. And the same thing on your cell phones. Like, Candy Crush and all this stuff. And it’s like, they keep tempting you and teasing you with these little bits of features that you want for, you know, little amounts of money and As you do it little by little, it desensitizes you, and then they’re shifting that now into cars.

It’s like, yeah, you want heated seats? It’s an extra 9. 99 a month. You want to turn your radio on and actually hear a channel broadcast? Another 10 a month, and so on. It’s ridiculous. Yeah. Kind of doing this one to ourselves because we’re allowing it to happen. Even with streaming TV. It’s like, we all complained about cable TV.

We don’t, I don’t have what I want to watch. I wish I could a la carte it. And now we can a la carte it cause there’s 15 streaming services and we’re unhappy again.

Carolyn Ford: I want to go back to what, something you said though, about the gamification. I’m labeling it now that you didn’t say gamification, but you put something in my head about the kids working on their cars.

Like I totally had [00:20:00] an Iron Man vision. of them able to like, really, are

Kat DeLorean: you going there? Yeah, it’s something that I would like other people to adopt that’s part of our whole model is yes, I want kids to be able to interact with their cars again. And I’m not necessarily going to be able to get them to be able to interact with it the way I could.

So instead of trying to give them the experience I had, how can I take it to their level. And if you look at how profoundly successful anything open source is that allows them to get creative. That’s the whole thing. Everybody wants to get back to using their hands. I not only want to create something that they can interact with, that they could 3d print parts for, and that they can program their own little updates for.

Whatever. I want to create something that will last forever. I want them to have a lifetime warranty on their car and I’ll just build it into the price of the car and put away a savings that goes with it until they. Sell it and then it goes away, whatever. But we have this cost of maintenance, this cost of ownership that is stifling.

Now, when my [00:21:00] dad built cars, the thing that drove him crazy was the two biggest expenses you have in your life or your house and your car. Why are we paying for the second one forever? Literally forever. Soon as you finish paying for the first car, either you’re paying as much as a new car payment to maintain it, or you have to go buy a new car because it just died for whatever reason.

Why aren’t we investing a little bit more in making something people can actually own and afford to own? My dad was a car guy too and he always said that it was designed that way on purpose. It doesn’t have to be that way. That’s exactly why my father quit General Motors. He wrote a whole book about it, got him in a lot of

Chrissy Crutchfield: trouble.

There’s no money in keeping cars.

Kat DeLorean: Yeah. He said, why are you doing this? I don’t agree. And testified before Congress about it. It’s a big thing that has been in existence forever. And it’s time that we do something to stop the bleeding. And it terrifies me that we’re not thinking about the fact that we might be creating fast fashion with cars.

by not thinking about the life [00:22:00] cycle of these EVs. I’m not anti EV. I’m anti rushing EV all overnight without actually thinking about the implications of our future. That’s all.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. I can’t wait to see the pendulum swing back to, Oh, we’re doing research on ice engines again. This isn’t panning out how we thought like the

Sara Lacey: return of vinyl,

Kat DeLorean: what people don’t understand about internal combustion engines is it’s internal combustion.

That’s not internal oil burning engine. You can do a lot of different things. What if you use some of the new carbon capture technology? There’s carbon capture technology that now prints carbon fiber. Stick it on your tailpipe and spit out carbon fiber and print a new car. I mean, like, there’s so many

Carolyn Ford: different things.

Kat, you’re blowing my mind because now, I’m sorry, I’m thinking about Back to the Future. Your dad’s car and the

Kat DeLorean: professor put garbage in it. Yeah. Go. Okay. So did you know that there’s an acid that if you put an aluminum can in it, it turns to hydrogen gas. And I [00:23:00] literally said to my husband, there you go, Mr.

Fusion, build it, make it happen. But that’s what we should be looking at is alternatives, not just. The one we should be looking at what are different fuels that we could use that could maybe balance things out. Also, my father, when he was building his car, he was investing research into a sterling engine, which is fascinating.

Are we looking into flywheels and kinetic engines, gyroscopic technology, different batteries, all sorts of different, right?

Carolyn Ford: Which that brings up a question for me. Here’s going to show my full idiocy with the hybrids. Why can’t the kinetic energy of just moving recharge the engine? Why do we even have to have

Kat DeLorean: a hybrid?

That’s a fascinating, wonderful, amazing question. It has a lot to do with the energy required to actually push the car forward in different situations. A great way to answer that question would be to drive with your son in his Prius. Because they have a screen that I was obsessed with. [00:24:00] If I could watch all the time, you can coast and watch it recharge your battery.

Yeah. We haven’t quite gotten to the point yet where we can generate enough power, but we’ve done a lot of research into that. And that’s one of the things that my father and I were developing an engine that was based on the Stirling engine concept that would go from New York to California and a teaspoon of gas.

It was hybrid, but it would only use a teaspoon of gas if you never shut the car actually off. It’s possible up until this point, it was a lot more difficult because in order to do a lot of that, the computer efficiency, the programming, the timing has to be so specific and powerful that we hadn’t quite gotten there yet.

But technology has gotten to a point of where we’re probably going to see some of those engines coming in the near future, if we don’t. Spend all of our research dollars on Eevee.

Carolyn Ford: See, I thought you were just going to say, because Carolyn’s science, that’s why you can’t do it. No, you can, you can do it.

Kat DeLorean: I

Executive Producer Tania: would be [00:25:00] remiss if I didn’t speak for Eric since he’s being very good about not interjecting.

He’s dying. Alternators on all the wheels.

Kat DeLorean: Yes, yes. That’s actually part of what is in the design of the engine we were working on. Because that’s important is the four independent alternators in the wheels generate the power.

Executive Producer Tania: Alright, so let’s circle back a moment. So Carolyn, how familiar are you with all the different brands of EVs out there on the market right now?

You know Tesla, you know the hybrid that’s the Prius, but full electric vehicles. Do you have knowledge around what your options are when you’re trying to make this decision?

Carolyn Ford: Not really. I mean, I googled, I test drove a Tesla. It was really pretty. I liked the lights. I did not like when I would take my foot off the gas.

It was like stepping on the brake. Didn’t like that.

Emily Fox: Oh, that’s the best. Okay. Well, I guess you get used to it,

Carolyn Ford: Emily. It really, I was like, wait, what’s happening? It was fun to drive and I drove a Genesis, but I [00:26:00] forget who, what’s the, what kind of car is that?

Sara Lacey: That’s the brand. Hyundai. It’s the luxury arm of Hyundai.

Correct.

Carolyn Ford: There you go. Okay. Also fun and very pretty. I liked the little ball thing in the middle. That’s about all I know. There’s a lot. The year

Executive Producer Tania: 2023 available and I didn’t fact check this number, but at least have a list of 43 different. I’m not surprised. EVs that are available and it spans. And probably you don’t want a GMC Hummer, but nonetheless, there’s Hummer, there’s Ford, there’s Rivian.

Those are going to be pickup trucks. You’ve got various different Audi models. You’ve got the outrageously priced Porsches. You’ve got Jaguar has an entry, Volvo, Emily has one, Cadillacs, BMWs, you know the Genesis already, Tesla, of course, the Nissans, because Nissan Leaf has been around for a while, right?

They’ve got a few other. Models as well. You’ve got Kia has entered the fray for a while now. And VW got the ID four, the new ID seven, all that stuff. Toyota obviously [00:27:00] is in the mix.

Carolyn Ford: I’m really impressed with the Prius. Like I said, my son’s Prius is almost 20 years old. And he’s driving it in Utah, cold and Utah snow.

And it’s still going the same

Kat DeLorean: battery. When they first came out with it, my dad told me to go buy one. That’s why I ended up buying one. He said, they are selling this car for less than what it costs them to make, to get this technology out there. And he was really impressed with how the, I loved that car.

I loved driving it every day. It was so much fun. Very well made. So what’s

Carolyn Ford: the hybrid I

Kat DeLorean: should buy? You should do what works for you. So you like to go to the cold. That’s another thing about EV, your battery drains. Think about when you take out your phone or think about ghosts or is like, Oh, it gets colder.

And my battery drained in my thing. So you have to consider your life right now. And when it comes to what you buy, feel good about what you buy. So you’re asking what hybrid. You should buy that should be based around what is it that you like to do and what’s going to fit your needs. [00:28:00] And also you can consider how the hybrid functions when it comes back to the charging back of the battery and different things, because there are different ways you can drive the car to get a lot more gas mileage, different ways you can feel better about it.

The question I would have for you is you described that you want to be going. Skiing and making these long drives, what’s more important to you having a lot more space so that if you have more stuff to take with you, you don’t have to worry or the ability to zip around and not have to worry. Do you want something a little more fun to drive or something that can fit all your stuff?

No matter what, that’s where you start.

Carolyn Ford: Yeah, I would consider the Toyota hybrid just because I’ve been so impressed with the Prius. That’s the one that I would lean towards. But it would need to be bigger because I got an 85 pound dog that takes up half the car and then I got the rest of my gear. Have you seen

Kat DeLorean: the bigger Priuses?

Yeah, they have new, bigger Priuses. They have like little mini SUVs and the new one is so [00:29:00] beautiful. Like it got all kinds of press coverage for being just really

Emily Fox: cool

Kat DeLorean: looking. How much? It looks like they start at 27, 000 and the XLE, the bigger one is about around 40. That’s all.

Executive Producer Tania: What’s your price range, Carolyn?

Where do you live in your mind? Where would you want to be? Because that’s going to exclude a lot of your choices. Yes, it is. Straight at EVs.

Carolyn Ford: Honestly, Kat, what you just said about the Prius is shocking. I paid for my CRV and I got like the top of the line brand new, like no miles on it. And I paid 48 for it.

Now that was in 2017, so to get a Prius hybrid, I’m surprised that it’s about the same price. What do I want to pay? Like, I don’t know, 5, 000 or something. 5, 000, nothing. Is

Executive Producer Tania: there a radio shack around still? Get you a little remote control car for bad reasons. Duracell Energizer. Again,

Carolyn Ford: I paid 8, 000 for it, but used.

But yeah, no, I expect to pay about 50, 000 to get, like, all the comforts. And I don’t want to [00:30:00] pay a subscription for my heated seats. That’s not here yet. Right? So the heated seats, super important to me. Like, these are the things I look for. Is the heated seat kind of thing.

Executive Producer Tania: You have narrowed my field of 43 significantly by saying you want to be, we’ll call it between 40

and 60.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s a chunk of cars that sit there. And then I think the next question has to be based on your passions and hobbies and use case. How far do you want to go on a charge? Because that’s going to narrow your window even further.

Carolyn Ford: There’s a place in the desert that I go to fairly often. It’s about three and a half hours from here.

So it’s not fair because I do stop for gas halfway. I don’t want to stop and charge. If I could stop and charge as fast as I could fill up with gas, no problem. But I’m not going to stop and charge for 45 minutes.

Executive Producer Tania: So let’s say you need to at least hit a 300 mile mark. Yeah. In the 40 to 60, 000 range. We’ve narrowed it down.

That’s a small group. The seven cars. [00:31:00] And it will fit my dog.

Carolyn Ford: There’s seven that will fit the criteria.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ve got the Mach E, the Ford F 150. That’ll fit your dog in the back. The Cadillac Lyrik, the BMW i4, which I don’t think would fit your dog. I’m not sure which size that one is. That’s the little one or not.

The Ioniq 5, which is small, probably won’t fit your dog, but it’s a nice car. The Ariya, which is the Nissan, and then the larger Kia EV6, which apparently we just learned costs less than the Ioniq 5.

Carolyn Ford: Well, but I’m also very concerned about what you’ve brought up, Kat. If these cars are really only gonna last eight, ten years, that makes me sick to my stomach.

That feels worse than burning fossil fuel right now, to me.

Kat DeLorean: We haven’t gotten there yet, but there is no plan for what’s gonna happen to these cars. If we’re not talking about it, we should be, because yeah, that’s it, if we’re creating a bunch of throwaway cars. What’s going to happen to them? Are we recycling them?

Are we reusing the parts? By the way, the [00:32:00] 40, 000 included a 5, 000 markup. So the highest MSRP is only 35, 000, which is kind of mind blowing. I want to go buy a breeze

Sara Lacey: now. I do too. There’s so many pieces to this. It’s bonkers. But basically you have the federal tax credit. It used to apply to any EV. That you bought.

And then as of this summer, it became any EV that was made in America. And so a lot of these credits are being shifted away from the Hyundai’s and the Kia’s and all this. And I think that it has provided incentive for those manufacturers to start wanting to build back in America. I think that’s. The lofty goal there, but it’s also important to be mindful that you cannot take that credit for granted.

You have to determine whether or not the car that you are looking at is eligible for that. And then you might have some state incentives and whatnot. Again, it’s not as black and white as [00:33:00] we’re used to everything being just a regular internal combustion car purchase.

Executive Producer Tania: There are more factory options. BMW is building in this country, Volkswagen, Toyota.

They

Emily Fox: actually are going to be building EVs in a Kentucky plant, I heard.

Executive Producer Tania: Breaking news. Mercedes have plans. I think there’s even plans for more manufacturers to do that because it is. More beneficial to be near your market.

Emily Fox: Michigan actually just started a whole initiative to try to get more manufacturing in state from some of these automotive manufacturers.

They’re not the only ones either. This is a whole big push that’s happening across the industry.

Kat DeLorean: That’s actually the entire business model we have is to rebuild Detroit. It’s all built around bringing manufacturing back and providing jobs and taking the hit so that the manufacturers who want to keep making their own money.

And I’ll just do my not for profit thing over here.

Carolyn Ford: See, but there again, I will go back to the whole maintenance thing. Like if I blow a tire, if I crack a [00:34:00] windshield.

Sara Lacey: My Tesla, my husband was driving it and got in an accident. So I am also the current owner of a 2022 Nissan Rogue Sport as my rental car.

Carolyn Ford: Okay. So Sara, you just brought up some stuff like when you get in an accident or blow a tire, what the hell do you do? Or even crack a windshield. Aren’t they like super expensive and even hard to replace? So, this is actually the

Sara Lacey: second time that my car’s gotten hit. Neither time has been our fault, so the other people’s insurance paid for it.

The second time is definitely going to be more because the impact ruined some parking sensors and some other sensors. And it was just more extensive. Before that, did not have a whole lot of repairs on my old car. So, when I did have repairs, it was Very inexpensive. So I would have sticker shock if I were to be paying for this repair myself.

The problem that I’m experiencing currently, and I’d be [00:35:00] curious to know, I haven’t done a whole lot of homework about it, is taking an extraordinarily long time, even to just get into the shop. The administrative piece of it, it’s been frustrating once it’s. In the shop, like the first time it took them about a month and a half.

And it was just basically a bumper and a new lift gate repair that took a significant period of time. I think that was six and a half weeks.

Emily Fox: Isn’t that usually just because Tesla is the only company that’s manufacturing those bumpers and those parking sensors. They don’t have sources that can manufacture it for them after market.

They’re so tightly held on that. It’s not surprising. It’s taking that long.

Sara Lacey: I think there are more of them out on the road now. So there’s just more volume of cars to be repaired. Yep. So I think that they’re having a tough time keeping up now. The caveat to that is that we did want to go to the Tesla shop and not to one of their approved vendors.

So I was being very picky about that just because I’m so nervous. [00:36:00] Because there’s sensor damage here. I was feeling like, Ooh, I’m just really not sure. I want to navigate that and worry about whether or not that’s going to be a repair that’s not up to snuff.

Carolyn Ford: So when you say sticker shock, like how big of

Sara Lacey: a

Carolyn Ford: sticker shock?

Sara Lacey: My current estimate, just what the insurance estimate the damage to be before. Even getting in the shop and having them get in there and look at it. It’s already at 4, 800

Chrissy Crutchfield: and estimates tend to be low ball

Sara Lacey: as well, right? And it is not a car you can work on yourself. I mean, maybe there’s somebody out there who could, I am not someone who would feel confident.

Doing that. And of course, then there’s more MT issues.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s too many cameras and sensors

Sara Lacey: probably

Executive Producer Tania: requires special Tesla proprietary computers to hook up and disable this, that, and the other to unlatch the bumper screws or something ridiculous like that. I had a former coworker that had a similar experience in the before times.

So there was no chip shortage or things like that, supply chain issues. And he had just bought a [00:37:00] model three or whatever. I think he had it two days essentially, or a week at most. And he got rear ended by like a city Metro bus. It was at very low speed apparently, but still the rear end bumper damage. It was months that he was back on a rental car.

And it was just like, wow, if it was a Toyota, you’d have been in and out and you know, eight days on your way.

Emily Fox: I heard from someone they had something wrong with one of their Tesla doors and it took them months and months and months of trying to source one and get it painted and they ended up buying a busted up Tesla out of a junkyard or off of a towing company and ended up reinstalling the door that way and they got it paint matched, but that was the only way that they were ever going to get a door for it because doors are going towards New manufactured cars.

You have to buy one that’s totaled to get them.

Carolyn Ford: You guys are totally talking me out of an EV.

Sara Lacey: No,

Carolyn Ford: no,

Sara Lacey: no. There’s so many options. A certain brand. Yeah, Tesla’s not the only one. Tesla’s

Carolyn Ford: not the only one. Am I six weeks [00:38:00] out like Sara? No.

Executive Producer Tania: These days, you’re paying an arm and a leg if you crack a windshield, no matter what it is, because these windshields with the fancy sensors are like ridiculous.

Chrissy Crutchfield: Speaking of windshields, back to Caroline’s question, is that not covered under your comprehensive deductible? So like 250 or even zero deductible?

Carolyn Ford: Yeah,

Chrissy Crutchfield: that’s

Carolyn Ford: a good point.

Chrissy Crutchfield: Yeah, so it’s like, that seems sort of moot.

Carolyn Ford: Well, other than getting it in.

Chrissy Crutchfield: And so I want to say it was within a month, we had to replace the windshield on the ID for because a truck kicked up a rock and took it out

Emily Fox: while

Chrissy Crutchfield: safely claims they can repair it and do the programming they couldn’t.

Right. So what had happened was we had to take it to Volkswagen. They had to reprogram it. We had to pay 700 for them to reprogram it, and then we sent the receipt for that back to Safe Flight, and they reimbursed us.

Carolyn Ford: How [00:39:00] long did that whole process take, though, too? Again, lazy. It was about a month.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I think everything’s just going to take longer with EVs because the tech is so much deeper.

And there’s just not an abundance of it.

And

Executive Producer Tania: then there’s not an abundance of workers or shops to go to that are certified or understand the technology and can do all those replacements. So at this juncture with it’s still being so new and sort of in its infancy, it’s just going to be a lot harder than my Toyota Corolla, blah, blah, blah, Honda Civic.

And I, you know, a week later, I’ve got it fixed with parts from advanced auto.

Chrissy Crutchfield: A lot of the new cars, it’s all like the. Distance control, whatever other crap that’s in the windshield, they’re all taking just as long to get that stuff. And they’re probably going through that same process. So that’s not exclusive to EVs.

Carolyn Ford: Well, my CRB just has plain glass.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. I like that. Mine do too. They

Sara Lacey: don’t sense the weather. Yeah. Your tires are going to be regular tires. Yeah. You might want to get like [00:40:00] a low rolling resistance tire, but you can do regular tires. And especially since you’re in Utah, you can put on all weather. A winter tire.

Now you’re not going to be as efficient with a winter tire and all of this, but you can do that. So some of the basic things you’re okay on and that is the benefit of going with an EV from a known manufacturer and an established manufacturer. So those parts are going to be much easier to come by and much easier to replace.

Versus something new like a Rivian or a Tesla or Alpha or Fisker or Lucid.

Executive Producer Tania: So Chrissy, cause you’ve had regular Volkswagen’s we’ll call them gasoline powered, and now you have the electric Volkswagen. Do you feel like you’re in a Volkswagen when you’re in the ID4 or was it something totally different?

Meaning to say Volkswagen’s a Volkswagen. So you can have that comfort and know what you’re getting.

Chrissy Crutchfield: It’s a Volkswagen. Absolutely. It’s comfortable. We like it. I still have problems with. Getting used to the things that the car wants to do for me. I still like to have [00:41:00] control. The worst part. Yeah.

Carolyn Ford: Wait, what do you mean?

Chrissy Crutchfield: What does it want to do for you? Well, to conserve energy, you’re supposed to use like adaptive cruise control. And so it’s spaces. The vehicles for you based on whatever the camera’s telling you. My CRV does that too, and I don’t like it. And I hate it because even though Mike has it sort of like as close as it can be, because we might be a little bit of the tailgaters, but People can still cut you off.

Well, and that too. And so it’s like, I don’t want to drop five miles per hour because I’m just getting ever so slightly too close to a car. So I hate that.

Emily Fox: I love my adaptive cruise control. It took a lot of getting used to and it was terrifying for a while, but it’s much nicer. I will say though, just generally the adaptive cruise control technology, even in EVs or whatever kind of car it is, has a long way to go before like some of that gets smoothed out so that the experience as a driver [00:42:00] is a little bit more friendly and less.

terrifying and an association with whatever your kind of like principles are, but your point, Carolyn, about somebody cutting you off, that is the most irritating thing. And my dad has made comments about how much he loves cutting off EVs that have adaptive cruise control on because the driver gets all frustrated and flustered.

It is what it is. But you can certainly disable those things.

Sara Lacey: I don’t drive with really any of that enabled because I don’t like cruise control on an internal combustion engine. I mean, it makes me crazy. I don’t like to not feel like I know exactly what the car is doing at all times. There’s a lot that you can work on that with, but that would be something that you would want to pay attention to when you do a test drive.

What can I turn off? What can I adjust so that I feel comfortable and confident?

Executive Producer Tania: I love cruise control. I cruise control through traffic.

Carolyn Ford: I do too.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s amazing. Again,

Carolyn Ford: lazy. My ankle gets tired, but also I will get a ticket if I don’t cruise control. [00:43:00]

Executive Producer Tania: Emily, same question, because you’ve got the Volvo EV right now and I believe you have past history with regular Volvos.

Emily Fox: we have a lot of Volvos.

Executive Producer Tania: Are you getting the same Volvos of all those same experience? You’re comfortable, you’re, you’re recognizing that you have, or is it something totally disparate?

Emily Fox: So let’s be clear. A Volvo is not always a Volvo. We have a Volvo 480 turbo and that looks nothing like any of the other Volvos that exist in the market.

It is a nice interior. It’s well made. It meets kind of like my style expectations on the interior. I don’t look like somebody super glued an iPad to the dash and it doesn’t look like I’m sitting in the middle of a cockpit with just glass everywhere that you see with the Mercedes EQS, it’s a little insane, but it’s nice.

It’s comfortable. I definitely get the safety features that one would expect from Volvo and they’re very noticeable and I enjoy them.

Sara Lacey: I wanted to say and emphasize that a plug in hybrid might really be a nice middle ground for Carolyn to consider. [00:44:00] It’s kind of the best of all worlds. You’re going to have an engine, so you’re going to have the safety of not having range anxiety.

That a lot of people perceive as a hurdle towards EV ownership, you’re going to have the regenerative braking. Even when you drive and your battery depletes, you can charge it up again. You can plug it in at night. It’s going to be a small amount of charge, but you can plug it in just to a regular outlet and get a few miles each night and, you know, enough to maybe get a couple of errands done and get out on the road.

So I would. Really advise you to consider that if you kind of feel like the full EV may not be right for you But you still want to consider something Different and kind of new frontier ish

Executive Producer Tania: sort of a stepping stone to EV if you’re not fully ready to commit yet Go that middle ground where you’re slowly kind of getting into that EV range without fully committing yet [00:45:00]

Sara Lacey: Right and like Kat said if you have these long trips that you’re taking all the time and you don’t want to be Sitting at a charging station for however long during those trips.

It’s really potentially a good option.

Executive Producer Tania: All right, so we’ve narrowed your field down considerably.

Carolyn Ford: I’m sorry, but Kat’s already convinced me I’m going for this. All right, so. We’re done. We’re

Executive Producer Tania: done. Switching gears. So now on to What Should I Buy? Hybrid Edition. How can carolyn’s go about starting this journey, this process, any recommendations?

I mean, obviously if you’re looking for new, new, you’re going to a new car dealership, but these days, is that still have the same relevancy as it once did? Are there other means?

Chrissy Crutchfield: When we bought the Tundra back in July, they’re not taking custom orders for Toyotas. And that may have changed since then, but it’s basically go to the dealer.

You tell them what you want. And they’ll try to get as close as they can with it. Like they took what colors we wanted, what features we [00:46:00] absolutely needed. And it’s like, Hey, we’ve got this coming in on the truck. And then next couple of weeks, does this work for you? That’s how Toyota did it.

Emily Fox: Very similar with mine.

I ended up placing two orders for the same car through two different dealers to try to get the car I wanted because Volvo shut off the ability to build your own custom car with whatever package options you wanted in extra features. So I was. Talking to two different dealers to see which one was going to get here first off of the boat.

And one of them, I had an order in with Volvo USA. And that was the one that happened to come in like just a few weeks early. It was incredibly frustrating. It took 68 weeks after I placed the order, but some people, they were waiting six months. At least

Executive Producer Tania: so just like shopping for anything else, go to the store to look at it, then go home, get online and buy it off Amazon.

Sara Lacey: Yeah, that’s about right. That’s not uncommon for any car right now. It’s just been that way. But I would say that because you are looking at making a change from [00:47:00] your current Car to potentially a hybrid, some type of EV. I do think auto shows are still good for that because you’re going to find that the cargo space and the seating space is going to feel a little different because you know, how you use your space is not always a thing where you can say, Oh, this car has.

Such and such cubic feet of cargo, you know, maybe you’re carrying a dog kennel, maybe you’re carrying skis, all of those different pieces, they to me that maybe an auto show would be a good fit for you and you could walk around and you may not be able to order that car just yet, but at least you can have a sense of how that’s going to work differently for you.

Kat DeLorean: I agree. That’s a great way. When I’m looking for a new type of car and it doesn’t matter the manufacturer, the auto shows the first place I go. You said you drive a CRV. Yes. So the hybrid CRVs it’s 40 grand. There you go. You can just go with the same car you drive.

Carolyn Ford: Ta da sold. [00:48:00] I finished my last payment on the CRV maybe six months ago.

It’s been so nice. Cause I don’t have maintenance fees yet. And no car payment has been just like so nice. So the idea of getting a car payment again kind of makes me sick to my stomach. And that

Kat DeLorean: was my father’s point. Why is this a thing that we are married to? Why is this normalized? Why is your second biggest payment something you just accept making for Ever.

Forever. Until the end of death. Yeah. I’m

Carolyn Ford: enjoying no car payment right now.

Kat DeLorean: So screw the planet? No, I’m sorry.

Executive Producer Tania: Basically, yes. Hashtag team dead dinosaurs all the way.

Kat DeLorean: No. I’m actually looking at how to convert my diesel to like used cooking oil. Save the planet and you know, save my car.

Executive Producer Tania: The other problem in all of this that always gets glazed over too is The big bad oil, you know, oh, [00:49:00] we hate them, blah, blah, blah.

Well, the problem is gasoline and diesel, especially nowadays are byproducts of all the other stuff that everyone’s not willing to give up in life. Plastics, makeup, all sorts of adhesives. The asphalt on the road that we drive our cars on, that is all a result of crude oil transformation in a refinery.

And I don’t believe there’s a world where you could possibly never have gasoline and diesel because you could keep destroying those down into smaller components that then could be chemical feedstocks to make all our plastics and stuff like that. But there’s a cost associated with doing that. It doesn’t make sense at a certain point.

So then suddenly my pen here is going to cost me. 30 because my raw material goods is so expensive, right? So that goes back to this balance of don’t put all your eggs in one basket. We can significantly decrease volumes of things, but I don’t see where you’re ever going to get rid of it entirely.

Emily Fox: Has anybody [00:50:00] considered evaluating whether or not their older classic car is worth an EV upgrade?

Executive Producer Tania: Eric’s very happy with that.

Carolyn Ford: What do you mean an

Executive Producer Tania: EV upgrade? You can do that? Yeah. Have been some people that have taken older like Jaguars and things like that. And they’ll go buy a Tesla battery pack, motor, whatever. And they’ll stick it in there. Or there are people that are crazy enough to do that.

Chrissy Crutchfield: I just saw an article about, I forget what it was he was converting, but I just sort of, I was like, Oh, cool.

Emily Fox: It’s a neat way of getting it back to that tactile and still being able to work hands on on your car, because if you’re the one that’s actually doing the work and putting it in, you’ll know those systems very well. Ideally, they’re ones that you designed or ones that you worked with a company to make sure that you had all the parts for.

That market is so young. I know that there’s a shop EV West in California that will take some. Classic older cars and they’ll convert them to EVs for you. I think they’ve been popularized with Volkswagen bugs from a really long time ago

Executive Producer Tania: doing [00:51:00] torches for a while.

Emily Fox: Yeah It’s a neat alternative if you can get over how you’re getting that electricity to the car to charge it in the first place But for some of those smaller cars, you can get great performance out of them.

Kat DeLorean: There’s also a new three wheeled EV coming out Made by Malcolm Bricklin, that’s a whole lot of fun to drive. You know, you should check that one out too.

Executive Producer Tania: All right. So now that we’ve solved Carolyn’s next purchase debacle, have we, have we, I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m probing, I’m probing the Honda CRV hybrid that does exist.

So that there’s already 2023 models for that. So that might pique your interest, but I guess would that satisfy what you’re looking for? It’d be. more of the same of what you already have. It’d be very comfortable. Or are you looking to further branch out?

Carolyn Ford: Actually, that feels really good to me, other than the car payment.

Maybe I’m just really justifying my part in screwing the planet.

Kat DeLorean: Think about all of the carbon that went into manufacturing the new car. And you’re keeping your old car on the road. So you [00:52:00] can’t say I’m being a bad steward of the environment because I’m not doing this thing. There’s also other things you can do to get better gas mileage out of the car that you’re driving.

And again, other ways to offset the carbon that you create, just drive responsibly and respectably do the best you can with what you have. Understand that it’s not all black and white, there’s return on investment in intangible things in corporate world. So if you think about people equate things to dollars and cents, this iPad costs a certain amount of money.

And if I break this iPad, or if something happens to it, I can put A dollar amount on it, but people don’t think about if my system goes down, I also have people hours for every person that I pay 15 an hour, whatever that adds up. Just like, I wonder what it costs for BMW to charge people for those heated seats.

They have to pay people to support them and to charge people and the infrastructure. People don’t think about those dollars and cents. So it’s not all black and white. I have felt

Carolyn Ford: really guilty [00:53:00] about driving the car that I’m driving. It’s kind of a gas guzzler. I checked it today. It averages 25 miles to the gallon.

I don’t feel as guilty. All of your points. I’m hearing you guys. It’s not black and white.

Sara Lacey: I want to let you off the hook a little bit about that too. Cause to Kat’s point, there’s a lot that goes into this. And as you move forward through this process. Maybe the right thing to do is to keep your car that you have right now and either just proceed as normal or figure out if your driving habits can create more fuel efficiency.

You can also determine a threshold for you as you learn. For example, I went to the launch of a Toyota BZ concept, and they were talking all about Zero emissions and their new goal of being carbon neutral to the cat’s point. We want every piece of this car to be something that will either be reused or will be offset in some way, shape, or form.

They [00:54:00] obviously don’t have a timeline for that yet. Kind of the lofty goal, but you can also decide as a consumer to do your homework and figure out how important that is to you. And when you’re ready to pull the trigger on a new purchase, you can make that decision a part of your purchase. You know, when I bought my car, it was only in 2021, but it felt like there were no other options.

And the luxury of this right now is that you do, including the option not to buy. You can move forward in this process, thinking about what is the thing that makes me feel the worst? Is it. The perception that I’m a horrible person. Yeah, that’s the one gas in my car, or is it really that I’ve never taken care of the car and there’s a big black cloud coming out of the back or whatever.

I think you need to understand that it’s okay to maintain status quo. And even if you decide that you want an internal combustion engine that is more efficient for your new [00:55:00] car, that’s a good thing too.

Carolyn Ford: Yeah. You guys have made me feel really good about myself. I’m not going to lie.

Kat DeLorean: You know, what’s amazing is, is there’s so much in our lives that we do, decisions we make and choices, the way we treat ourselves that are based on these ideas we have in our head about what other people think about us.

I had this really profound experience with this lately, where I was struggling with something at work, and then I heard my curriculum director describing her struggles with the same exact thing. And then I said, you know, it’s really nice that you shared that with me because I felt a little less alone.

And she said, You know, I said to myself, If this badass hacker who did this for 20 years is getting stuck on the same thing, maybe I’m not so bad. I said, Wow! I said, If my badass curriculum director who can learn all these things is getting stuck, maybe I’m not so bad. So here both of us were beating up on ourselves, thinking the other one was the coolest thing on the planet.

It was all in our head. You’re making decisions based on what you think is outside of your space. Examine your whole life. I guarantee you that there are things in your [00:56:00] life that you’re doing that are causing far more damage to the environment than driving your car, that you can actually take action on now to feel better about what you’re doing and then take this.

in stride. Make a decision based on what’s good for you. Understand the implications of changing car that you have. Maybe buy a used CRV hybrid that has a lower car payment and is something that somebody already had the carbon that went into developing it and now you’re just swapping one for the other.

There’s a lot of different things and you have to first forgive yourself for what’s in your own head. That nobody else is thinking about you. Absolutely.

Carolyn Ford: Cause I have done some research, but to listen to each one of you who actually are pretty passionate about this, have experience in this, you’re experts in this area and to hear the different angles and to hear all the considerations that each of you have taken has been very helpful.

You know, you can rat hole on the research and looking at the different cars and then I’m like, I don’t know, is the CRV hybrid good? I don’t know. But [00:57:00] it’s been really helpful with listening to all of you and your experience.

Executive Producer Tania: Since we seemingly solved her car debacle, going back to EVs in general, and we’ll take your criteria off specifically and use the criteria of kind of a general everyday car, what would we recommend to somebody?

Looking for a pure EV that kind of meets your going to work every day, whatever we want to call a normal mileage commute is. I go to the grocery store and a couple extra things during the week. I’ve got 2. 1 kids and a dog, maybe, maybe not. What would be that all around? Is it the Volvo? Is it the ID4? Is it something else?

Is it the Tesla?

Kat DeLorean: I think it all depends on your price range and what you need to do with it. How big does it need to be? Really give me a lucid air. Right. I know. Oh

Emily Fox: my God. Have you seen the alphas too? Those are gorgeous. The Fisker Ocean. That looks like a fat beluga whale. It’s so adorable.

Sara Lacey: Okay. So I [00:58:00] think what I would say the other significant question is.

And it’s so counterintuitive, but how are you going to charge? I think the answer is different. If you are going to be able to charge at home, it’s not wildly different, but you are going to have a different experience of EV ownership if you are charging out in the world. And it’s a serious part of the EV conversation right now, because so many people don’t own their homes and they may not live somewhere where they can just plug in when they get home at night.

For me, that would be. A number one thing you have to ask yourself.

Emily Fox: I would add on and say, do you enjoy driving? I think driving is one of those things that everybody can fall in love with, with the right car and with the right time and the right set of things off of their mind. I love my XC40 recharge and I would buy another one because I enjoy the experience, but as of late, I’m looking at whether or not a Polestar is.

In my future at some [00:59:00] point or an alpha or a lucid or something that’s newer cutting edge to kind of push the envelope of what EVs could be in America 20 or 30 years from now, because I want to see the market do well. And I want to see us to be more economically responsible with how we’re developing and building these cars for consumers.

Kat DeLorean: When you say Alfa EV, what are you talking about? The

Emily Fox: Alfa Motors Ace and the Wolf that they have. Those are some pretty awesome things. They also have the Saga.

Kat DeLorean: I want to see that.

Emily Fox: Oh yeah. They’re classic retro designs. They’re beautiful.

Executive Producer Tania: Not talking about Alfa Romeo, unfortunately.

Emily Fox: No, probably not.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, look at that.

Emily Fox: Aren’t they cool? Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re the ones that have the pickup truck that looks like the one from Back to the Future that Marty drove. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I’m not a pickup truck person, but that one’s. Pretty cool. That is really neat. I like it. If I don’t bring this one up, Eric will be very sad because his current answer is Machi Machi Machi.

What do people think about Ford’s [01:00:00] Machi value for money? It’s fully loaded. I think it’s more closer to the 50, 000 range. So you’re somewhere between 000 for this. You get a little bit over 300 miles of range. It’s a Ford that could deter you. That could make you happy. I don’t know.

Kat DeLorean: I will never date somebody who drives the Mustang period.

End of conversation.

Oh,

Kat DeLorean: that’s just it. My girlfriend, she would never speak to me again. So, I mean, it’s an F body thing. However, I met the guy in charge of the new Mustang launch and on my board is a key chain because he was a fabulous man. So there is that, but that’s my response to the Mach E.

Executive Producer Tania: Ladies and gentlemen, the only Ford cat will own that key chain.

Kat DeLorean: That’s actually not true. Cause I drive a Ford F 250. I love my Ford truck. I love Ford trucks. So I just can’t drive specifically a Mustang or date anybody who drives a Mustang. It goes back to my first car was a Z28 in the [01:01:00] nineties. And that was the, the heat of the Mustang Camaro shootout. It’s like ingrained.

in my teenagerdom that I can’t, I must hate all mistakes.

Emily Fox: I think the Mach E isn’t a bad purchase. It’s not like my taste. Ford is Ford. If you like Fords, go with Mach E. If you’re trying to look for an EV, they have a good range. They’ve got some good pep seen that they handle well, but I have not personally driven one.

Carolyn Ford: I’m looking at one right now. It says it’s 80, 000. Like there’s a range. Of course you find the 80,

Executive Producer Tania: 000 one.

Kat DeLorean: I personally really want the F 150. The lightning? I just passed one on the

Executive Producer Tania: road the other day.

Kat DeLorean: I got married in a lightning version. So the Harley Davidson F 150, it was a lightning edition F 150. So that has a little bit of something to do with it.

But that’s the one EV that sparked my interest. True interest. So no Cybertruck. No, no. Making cars out of stainless steel is stupid.

Emily Fox: I just think the Cybertruck is stupid.

Kat DeLorean: Little known [01:02:00] fact, it was because he couldn’t afford a paint factory for three billion dollars and he knew somebody who could actually forge the stainless steel and then his genius was making it seem intentional.

Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: and who knows if that figment of Musk’s imagination will ever actually.

Kat DeLorean: I can tell you from trying to actually make one car out of stainless steel, there’s no way. When my dad made it out of stainless steel, stainless was actually cheaper than aluminum because aluminum was only provided to the aerospace industry.

So he would have made it out of brushed aluminum. If he could have, it just was way too expensive. Making something out of stainless today, especially when it’s so much harder to come by when all appliances are made by it, I can’t even get a sheet of it. So how he’s going to build many cars. I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s a great question. Nobody knows. Already four years behind. Allegedly it’s this year, but probably not. They still haven’t figured out the laser beams for the windshield wipers yet. So they can’t, you know, go to production yet. To start closing out, and I’m going [01:03:00] to point at Sara, so are there any new features that are really cool that people should be looking for in their new car, EV or otherwise, really?

And, you know, what are some tips and tricks or do’s and don’ts about going on this journey?

Sara Lacey: People are looking for new cars every day from anything from two years ago, you know, beyond. That’s what I’m thinking of when you’re thinking of new features. I came back to this world of actually buying a car after owning my car for 10 years.

And I had stepped away from riding for a while. So I was just really surprised at how tech heavy everything was. You know, new features that you should look for in a new car that might help ease that transition to me are something like Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Pat had kind of mentioned this a little bit earlier, but every manufacturer has their own kind of in house multimedia system.

Some of those are easier to use than others. [01:04:00] So I find that using something like Apple CarPlay and ease that transition. If not be something that I use completely, depending on the car that I’m driving.

Carolyn Ford: I would really like, have they solved the problem of using my nav on my phone, putting it on my display in my car?

Sara Lacey: That’s what Apple CarPlay will do for you. The only caveat is that if you are driving somewhere where you’re going to lose coverage, like where your phone would drop off or where you don’t have service. You’re not going to be able to see that navigation happening. So the benefit of it when it’s in the car system is that it’s usually a downloaded map that’s in the system.

So you can go through the desert and still get the directions directly from the car.

Executive Producer Tania: More advancements in that particular feature set because Mercedes just. Revealed that they’re joining a partnership with Google and specifically to use their navigation technology in their new vehicles. Yeah, that’s right all that.

Carolyn Ford: Right. It’s the interface that I don’t like [01:05:00] in my car. It’s just enough different than what I use on Google Maps.

Sara Lacey: Right.

Carolyn Ford: I have never used the navigation system in my CRV because I can’t figure out how to use the damn interface.

Kat DeLorean: See, that’s really funny because that’s one of the things that I asked when trying to design our cars.

I said, why does anybody put all this tech in the car anymore? Nobody uses it. Why don’t they just create something that will magnify your phone screen?

Sara Lacey: Absolutely.

Kat DeLorean: Hello? Because I don’t know anybody who uses the navigation in their car, especially since it goes. Like, you have to update it after a while, so what’s the point?

Why do we spend all this money on navigation nobody uses?

Sara Lacey: I will say a lot of cars now will have a wireless charging pad for your phone, and I’ve seen a lot of innovative ways of doing that. In the new Corvette, there’s like a vertical charging pad back here, which is so nice. So sometimes it’s vertical.

So if there’s a space saving issue, you can use it that way. But [01:06:00] oftentimes it’s a flat pad, but it creates a space for your phone. And then you can connect via Bluetooth and have everything talking to your phone, which is really fun.

Executive Producer Tania: So is there anything unique to EV car buying when you walk into the dealership and you just feel like you’re going to get swindled every time you go into those places sometimes, is it the same, same, doesn’t matter.

That’s an internal combustion engine. It doesn’t matter that it’s. running off pixie dust? Or are there certain things they try to trap you with? Things that can be confusing that a first time EV buyer should be more mindful of than maybe what they’re used to?

Emily Fox: Depends if you talk to the dealer. If you just go online, like you just go and try out the car at like an auto show and then go buy it

online.

Emily Fox: I would say it’s the same last minute add ons that they get you for anything else that you walk into the dealership with. I don’t think that there’s anything I recall from my buying experience. That was unique to the EV. They wanted to give me the fancy extra paint protection.

Chrissy Crutchfield: Did they try to sell you the oil change kit or something?

Emily Fox: Yeah, like all those

Chrissy Crutchfield: [01:07:00] stupid

Emily Fox: add on features.

Chrissy Crutchfield: Yeah, you know, the guy who’s doing the financing, it’s like, well, if you get this for an extra 700, and it’s like, yeah,

Emily Fox: it’s an EV, I don’t got to change that.

Kat DeLorean: That’s all ice crap. What about home charging stuff, though? I would think that would be different because they’ll try and sell you a home charging station, right?

Emily Fox: So I didn’t get that with mine. I got a package of like credits with Chargepoint or whatever the other one is, like one of the popular ones, like a free year of charging, anything like that, like a 50 gift certificate off of Chargepoint, whatever it was, I had taken the time to figure out what kind of charger I wanted to install in my house.

I watch YouTube videos based off of temperatures and how those cables wrap mine sits outside that I was going to be able to plug it in and like zero degree weather outside when it’s snowing and not fight a cable that’s stiff. And being

Sara Lacey: aware of those types of programs, like most manufacturers right now are partnering with Electrify America.

Emily Fox: That’s the one.

Sara Lacey: There might also be some with EVgo, but it’s like. [01:08:00] Get three free years of charging. So you want to be sure that if you do purchase that car, that you are getting those kinds of services.

Kat DeLorean: Are you able to finance your home charging station when you buy your car with the car? I don’t

Chrissy Crutchfield: think so.

Or at least it wasn’t that way with Volkswagen. Separate, but then we got a tax credit for the state for the purchase of the charger and install 40 percent back from the state just for the install cost.

Kat DeLorean: That is such a terrible barrier entry point to EV ownership. That is so discriminatory. And like, how much is a charger?

Tens of thousands of dollars. Are you serious and you can’t finance it with your car, you are automatically shutting out an entire segment of our population that cannot afford to do the upfront cost of that. I am so do not. That’s

Sara Lacey: true. You can get a home charging kit. It totally depends on the manufacturer.

So the prices are different per manufacturer. [01:09:00] So they’re usually around 2, 000 give or take. But then you also have to consider whether or not you have the electrical foundation. Like you have to make sure that you have the ability to power that charger. So you need the right kind of amp. You have to have your

Kat DeLorean: house redone by an electrician, which is a cost that I already assumed you had to absorb, which is a significant because I had to do it when I wanted to install a kiln.

It’s also one of the cost barriers. If you want to look at how much it might cost. There’s a lot of information on installing the tankless water heaters. They also require the same type of power to your house. So you can estimate how much it’ll cost. And it’s significant because they have to actually run the power from the power line.

You’ll pay more money from the power company.

Carolyn Ford: Yeah. So it’s not the charger itself. It’s getting the infrastructure to be able to use the charger.

Sara Lacey: Yeah. Usually the only exception to that is if you already have like a two 40 volt outlet in your garage, you can. Retrofit that to make it work with your [01:10:00] charger.

Executive Producer Tania: So now that we’re tacking on an extra 10, to your EV purchase, you have now moved your choice option to still hit a 50, 000 target to the Chevy Bolt.

Kat DeLorean: Actually the Chevy Bolt has a really high satisfaction rating, probably because it’s a 20, 000 EV.

Executive Producer Tania: Your standards are down here. You could also get a Nissan LEAF, a MINI or a Mazda MX 30, but you’re getting 150 mile range at best.

Chrissy Crutchfield: And the thing about the LEAF is depending on where you live, as the infrastructure, especially with Electrify America builds out. They’re not doing the EV charger that’s compatible with the leaf anymore. They’re eliminating the chatty. Good call.

Kat DeLorean: So we’re talking about like an Apple Android charger situation here with these EV infrastructure pretty much.

Chrissy Crutchfield: Yeah. Wow. Most are CCS then there’s the Tesla network and then there’s Chatimo, which was [01:11:00] Mitsu and Nissan. There’s usually one at each of the Electrify America stations I’ve ever been to. And some jerk parks in front of it in their whatever and they block it and then the poor Nissan Leaf pulls up and it’s just like, well, I’m going to wait because I have no choice any

Executive Producer Tania: closing thoughts for our intrepid EV purchasers out there.

Carolyn Ford: You know, I started considering some of the things that all of you guys were throwing out. It’s an important consideration that I even consider keeping my car right now, because like, I looked at the CRV hybrid. I Googled it while we were talking the gas mileage. I don’t know if the gas mileage on the hybrid justifies getting a new car.

It’s not that much better. It’s better. It’s not that much better than the one that I’m already driving. So do I,

Executive Producer Tania: my viewpoint on that is you will never justify a new car purchase. If there’s nothing already wrong with your current car, your current car died, then you have full justification. Everything makes sense.

[01:12:00] You need a new car. But if your car is still going to go another 10, 15 years and your car’s paid for and all you’re doing is regular maintenance and you go turn around and you go 60, for a car. I don’t care what the fuel economy is on that thing. It’s going to take you years. To break back even. It’s

Carolyn Ford: such an important point to consider and I hadn’t thought about that.

So I’m just keeping my CRV.

Kat DeLorean: Take the money that you save on the car payment and invest it in supporting climate science. Yeah, I like that. Just do something that makes you feel better. Also, I would do the math. Because I think if you looked at the numbers and saw exactly how much extra damage you as one human would be doing by not buying a new car.

Now again, I’m all for saving the environment, like I’m all for EVs, I’m all for it, but it has to make sense for you. We can’t make decisions based on what we think other people think of us or what’s going on in our own heads that isn’t reality. So just examine what the reality of the situation is and [01:13:00] if you’re making up things that aren’t real.

Yeah, you’ll be a lot happier if you keep your current car and then just go plant some algae. And it’ll suck up all the CO2. Definitely.

Executive Producer Tania: Just put a pond in your backyard. That algae will come all on its own. No worries. Don’t do it. Okay.

Resounding hybrid is the answer. Hashtag dead dinosaurs. It’s

Emily Fox: entirely Based off of like how you would buy a normal car, you need to consider all of the things that your lifestyle needs, the things that you can afford and what you’re willing to put up with. Maybe an EV is part of that category. Maybe you just don’t want to deal with that headache.

So filter it out of your next internet search.

Kat DeLorean: I agree. I think they’re great for the everyday day to day and you have access to your charging station for the situation we presented. Going on long trips and not wanting to stop. Definitely [01:14:00] not an EV. But there are situations where they work. Unique to everybody.

Depends on who you are and what you need. So last question. Money’s no option. You

Executive Producer Tania: sleep on piles of cash. What EV would you buy?

Chrissy Crutchfield: When they may come out. One of which you stood up next to that technology show.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, yes, the buzz.

Chrissy Crutchfield: So cool. No, the other one. Oh, which

Executive Producer Tania: other one?

Chrissy Crutchfield: Wasn’t there the ID7? Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah, yeah, yeah.

I went

Chrissy Crutchfield: inside

Executive Producer Tania: the reveal booth. Yep.

Chrissy Crutchfield: That’s what I want.

Executive Producer Tania: Nice. E Ray, Corvette, E Ray. Lucid Air, I think was Emily’s answer, but, or do you want to change it?

Emily Fox: Lucid Air or the brand new Polestar. One of those two.

Executive Producer Tania: Polestar 1 would be really

Carolyn Ford: fun.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Emily Fox: The new Polestar is amazing.

Carolyn Ford: I’m Googling all of these. I don’t even know.

Are

Executive Producer Tania: you happy with your model? Why

Carolyn Ford: Sara, would you

Executive Producer Tania: upgrade?

Sara Lacey: I would say I am happy with the EV experience. My problem that I’ve had with my Tesla is it’s. All screen based and I realized that more and more [01:15:00] as I got out and started testing other cars again, a lot more, I need more than just a screen. So I’m stuck in this space where the Tesla charging network is great and super reliable and fast, but the car itself.

It’s such a frustrating situation. I don’t know that I would buy that car again just based on my in car experience. Especially since there’s so many choices now.

Emily Fox: Good news! Apparently the U. S. government made a deal with Tesla to open up 7, 500 chargers on their networks.

Sara Lacey: I know it’s exciting. And now we just have to

Emily Fox: wait

Sara Lacey: to see how that plays out.

So good point, Emily, for sure. I’m excited about that. And I think obviously it opens a ton of options up for, for me going forward. But if money was no object, what would

Executive Producer Tania: you buy?

Sara Lacey: I feel like I. I had a really great experience with the Mercedes [01:16:00] Benz EQS. Like if I just didn’t have a care in the world and I could drive whatever.

It was beautiful. It was customizable. It was. The frontier of Eevee everythingness, but I’m also super curious about the F one 50 lightning. I’m in Colorado, so I feel like I would love to have a truck experience and see what that’s all about. I also drove. The B-M-W-I-X-M 60, so that’s a performance version of their ix, kind of an SUV.

It was really interesting in that I always thought like a performance version of an EV is ridiculous ’cause like really is, is it diminishing returns, the power and the speed. Could you really tell? And that was a yes . But it’s also an EVs, it’s still not the same as driving a super [01:17:00] powerful internal combustion engine cars.

Executive Producer Tania: Since money is no object, I’m going to go a different route and I don’t want any of the cars listed on my, uh, lists that I curated and I’m going to build my own cars. And I am going to create a retro Fiat Panda EV. Because Fiat Panda is always my answer.

Emily Fox: If you do that, you have to sell schematics and make parts for everyone else to do it.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m just putting that out there into the universe. Love it. I love it. We hope you enjoyed our What Should I Buy Ladies and EVs edition, and if you’re excited for more, well then, keep up with all the latest car trends and vehicle reviews, and not just EVs, by visiting agirlsguidetocars. com, where you can catch all of Sara’s latest car news.

Fire up your favorite podcatcher and tech out with Carolyn while listening to tech transforms. Learn more from folks like Emily and Chrissy by joining the Grand Touring Motorsports Club. And finally, hop over to dngmotors. com to check on all of Kat’s progress in starting up her very own [01:18:00] car company and peruse the online tribute museum to her father at deloreanlegacy.

org.

Crew Chief Eric: Ladies, I gotta say, this has been a stellar episode. It’s been awesome to watch you guys debate EVs. And you know what? I have to say, I think it did a better job than the guys normally do, where we get up on our soapboxes and pontificate about spending other people’s money in cars that are absolutely unobtainable.

But you know what? I learned a lot from this, and I hope our listeners did too. And if I can just add one little extra thing, I think if money was no object and I had to buy an alternative fuel vehicle, there’s two on my list. One of which keeps playing the hokey pokey on me, which is the Hyundai concept.

And then I think I might just wait for this new supercar that’s coming out and we’ll see when it becomes available as an EV. So I’ll just leave it there. But thank you all for joining us yet again.

Chrissy Crutchfield: You know, the difference between the male and all female is that I believe we were all sober.

Crew Chief Eric: He makes a huge difference. [01:19:00]

Carolyn Ford: This was really fun. Thanks you guys. And thanks. Thanks for all the advice. It was very helpful.

Crew Chief Eric: No. Thank you all for coming. It’s been a pleasure.

Carolyn Ford: Thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM 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 [01:20:00] consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

For as little as 2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without fans, supporters, and members like you.

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Learn More

What else should you buy? Check out other What Should I Buy? Podcast episodes for more car buying “advice” 😉 And remember: the debate never ends – it just shifts gears.

Buying an EV today means becoming an amateur electrical engineer. From charging infrastructure to battery degradation, the homework is real. And while the market now offers over 40 EV models – from the Chevy Bolt to the Porsche Taycan – figuring out which one fits your lifestyle is a challenge.

Tesla Model-Y
Ford Mach-E
Sony Vision S
X-Peng
Lightyear One
Hyundai Ioniq-5
The New Dodge Charger EV
Chrysler Airflow
HUMMER EV
Rivian
ALPHA Motors
Bollinger
The Tesla Cybertruck
Nissan Electric Pickup
Mercedes EQXX
Hyundai N74 Concept (Hydrogen)

Carolyn test-drove a Tesla and a Genesis EV but found the regenerative braking jarring. She’s intrigued by hybrids, especially the Toyota Prius, which her son drives through Utah snow with ease.

The Right to Repair and the Death of Tactile Car Culture

Kat and others lament the loss of DIY car culture. EVs, with their sealed systems and proprietary tech, are harder to maintain. Subscription-based features – like paying monthly for heated seats – add insult to injury. “We’re creating fast fashion with cars,” Kat warns. “There’s a death point where they can’t be revived.”

She dreams of open-source vehicles, lifetime warranties, and cars kids can mod like Minecraft. Her vision? A future where cars are built to last, not to be replaced.

The group agrees: being a responsible global citizen doesn’t mean blindly buying an EV. Hybrids, hydrogen engines, and even carbon-capture tech deserve attention. “Don’t change your entire life just to look good for the environment,” Emily advises. “Offset your carbon use until you find something that truly fits.”

So… What Should Carolyn Buy?

She needs space for skis and an 85-pound dog, reliability in snow, and something that doesn’t make her feel guilty. The consensus? A hybrid SUV – maybe a larger Prius or a Toyota RAV4 hybrid. Stylish, practical, and less likely to leave her stranded at a charging station.

Whether you’re a die-hard gearhead or a tech-savvy commuter, this episode reminds us that car buying is personal, political, and deeply emotional. The future of mobility isn’t just electric – it’s diverse, adaptable, and hopefully, a little more fun to drive.

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