Girls Just Want to Have Cool Cars and Learn About Them

“With women in automotive, so many people just can’t accept it. I feel like automotive largely goes out of its way to exclude women. I’ve had men tell me to go make them a sandwich. And to be quiet because the men are talking. They said these things while I was being top paid. So I found the door.”
Rose Brooks

Emily and Rose, 2023, Portland, Oregon, photography by James Rexroad, courtesy of Emily.

After recent car troubles sent me to an auto shop for the first time in my life, I’ve been on a search for care and comfort in automotive spaces. Growing up with a mechanic for a dad meant that I was fortunate enough to be able to turn to him every time car issues arose. But this time he was out of the country.

I took my car into a nearby garage and experienced confusing communication about the repairs I needed. It wasn’t until I pushed back by letting the shop know that my mechanic father would soon be able to take a look at the car that they relented. The cost of the repairs dropped to a fraction of the original quote. 

Automotive spaces have always represented care and comfort to me because of my dad. Yet my first experience of this world without him as an interlocutor made me aware of what many other women experience: that knowledge about cars and how to fix them is largely gatekept by men.

This led me on a search to connect with and document people creating spaces of belonging in the automotive world for women. In Portland, Emily Olivia Tyler has been doing exactly that. Since 2011, Emily has run a femme-forward automotive interest group called Car Krush. Over the years, Car Krush has centered women in their many community offerings like  car shows, classes, movie nights, podcasts, and more. From the start, Car Krush has been a team effort assisted by eager collaborators like Rose Brooks. A “master of everything,” Rose is a producer for the Car Krush podcast, a professional car mechanic who teaches classes for Car Krush, and a knowledgeable van enthusiast.

As I continue to explore within my practice the power that comes with centering communities at the peripheries, I asked if Emily and Rose would chat with me to share more about their experiences having collaborated on creating an inclusive world of girls and cars.

---

Nina Vichayapai: Emily, could you talk about how Car Krush started? 

Emily Olivia Tyler: It started when I blew up the engine on my ‘89 Trans Am back in 2011. I was heartbroken. I didn’t know how to fix my car. And all of my girlfriends at the time were buying plastic cars. A lot of us didn’t really know how to fix our cars or really even know how they work.

At the time I couldn’t find classes to take to learn how to fix my car. I called around to community colleges and all of them were either ASC certified (which means that you were going to be a mechanic and working with new cars or fixing their cars) or there were “how to buy a used car” classes. I’m not ASC and I have already bought plenty of cars, so those weren’t going to work for me.

I had to figure a lot of things out myself. That basically was the catalyst of what Car Krush came from. There’s been a few different iterations since then.

I wanted Car Krush to have a slumber-party-with-wrenches vibe. Just something fun that isn’t too serious, but definitely heavy on information. At the same time I wanted to do events and car shows because I wasn’t really seeing what I wanted represented at car shows. There’s really great shows around here but I wanted a show with a more pop and street style aesthetic. And not just old dudes. I wanted there to be a lot of fashion involved. My girlfriends are just very sharp dressers.

Nina: And you also run a fantastic podcast, was that part of your plan for Car Krush from the start?

Emily: The podcast started because we wanted to talk to women about not seeing yourself represented in automotive media. We were around all these women that were buying cars and doing stuff with their cars so we started with interviewing our friends that were car enthusiasts. 

Nina: I love the podcast. You have a great interview style that’s so personable. And you’ve interviewed all sorts of interesting people, including Rose here, too. 

Rose: I started off as a guest, and then Emily and I started talking pretty constantly. I now have a role as a producer for the podcast. We’re also launching our own podcast soon. I’m a new character to the Car Krush scene though. 

Emily: The first time that Rose and I had our interview, Lauren and I were on the phone with her for three hours for it. And then Rose and I were on zoom for an additional two hours after that. As soon as I got off the phone, I was like, “Okay, you have to learn from Rose. That’s where you have to go.” Seeking out the people you want to learn from and work with was a big lesson. After that I just wouldn’t leave her alone. 

I feel really fortunate to have met Rose. It was so serendipitous. Rose is a master of everything. She’s a publisher, fabricator, and mechanic. Rose was coming through town and we decided to teach an engine class. Procuring an engine came so easily. I just found one right away. And then just next thing you know we’re doing an engine class.

Nina:  That’s amazing. There’s a real range in what you offer at Car Krush. And lots of different people that you talk to. What do you look for in inviting people onto the show? 

Emily: When I started I really wanted to bring in fresh, green people, so the podcast didn’t have to be super serious, you know? One girl we interviewed bought a Camaro and she didn’t know anything about it except for she thought this car was cool. It was a really interesting interview. Then we ended up branching out some more. We’ve had professional mechanics, a stunt woman, a fabricator…We recently started bringing men onto the podcast too because we want our group to be accessible for everybody. We picked the name Car Krush because it specifically didn’t have “girl” or “woman” in the name. Our group is just very feminine leaning. We wanted men to be able to get involved with the group by buying something from us or supporting us in some way.

Nina: I think that’s great, to have men supporting femme-led spaces and not seeing it as something for women only. What is it like for you both to collaborate together?

Rose: I bounce ideas off Emily and talk about things that I’ve done in the past. I’ve worked in publishing and started a magazine about vans, and worked on television shows before. Through those I learned to just keep pushing through. Emily recently took a break from the podcast and I finally had to go, ”I think you’re done. Time’s up.” Beginning of the year, you need a new episode. So she got back to it.

Emily: Yeah, it was a very worthy episode and a good interview. I just couldn’t bring myself to publish or edit it. There was burnout. 

Rose: It’s easy to be burned out on stuff when it feels like nobody cares. But with a lot of creative tasks, that’s the question. When will somebody see it? Is it enough to just do it and do it and do it? Success is such a crapshoot.

So that’s my chief motivation. To be a sounding board for Emily when enough has been done in an episode and it’s ready. I try to help keep things moving. With people coming and going in Car Krush, things are just easier when you’ve got a partner.

Emily: As for working with Rose… Rose is basically the dean of education for our classes.

Rose: I was coming through town last summer and we put together the engine class to help pay for the trip. It wasn’t exactly a venture that made a lot of money. Because we spent so much energy on putting together a quality day. But it was good. And we’ve continued to do it. I mean it’s a shame. It’s the kind of thing that I wish that we could do for free, but we wind up wrangling up a lot of resources. 

I do that class, and then El from Stargazer Garager is going to do one– 

Emily: “How to diagnose shitbox with an untrained professional.”

Nina: That’s a great official class title!

Emily: And we’re going to do a casting class too. 

Nina: I think it’s cool that the classes you offer are pretty advanced. It’s nice to have those more technical sorts of offerings.

Rose: I think it bends people’s mind on what is actually useful. It does get pretty technical pretty fast. I’m sure some might get overwhelmed. But someone else sees it as a key. It’s empowering to know that much, especially about your own car or something you’re working on. It’s why a lot of people get into it.

Nina: Definitely! So Emily, you’ve had quite a few collaborators over the years, including Rose. Who else has been part of the team?

Emily: Kristen is a designer who did the logo and the website and was in the graphic design program at PSU. Lauren, who I also hosted the podcast with, came to us of her own volition. She had a LandCruiser and was into cars and tried to go to school to be a mechanic. The instructor pulled her into his office like before school started and said,”hey, I really encourage you to go to this other program because women don’t usually finish the programs here.”

And so then she was just like, “well, fuck you, I’m not going at all.” So then she worked in a few shops here and there. Her sister told her about what we were doing so Lauren came to one of our movie nights and she was like, “sign me up!” So she started working with us. And then my friend Mandy was also working with us. That was our crew at that time. Everybody kind of volunteered to get involved. 

Nina: That’s so rare. A lot of people, when they start something, get possessive about organizing it. What do you think it is about your mindset that has allowed you to feel comfortable bringing people into Car Krush? It seems like you’re really able to recognize when people have something to offer and have been generous about bringing on collaborators.

Emily: Team work is dream work. I am a control freak. And I had to learn that you can’t do everything. You have to give up control. That’s what’s going to make it human. I had to learn those lessons. I have had some people not work out. But pretty much, if anybody wanted to get involved I would be like, sure, there’s room for you. Because we had such a big vision. There was always room and there was always stuff to do.

Nina: How would you describe the community of Car Krush? The people who are part of the larger community and come to the events?

Emily: I’d say it’s girls that want to have fun. They have cool cars and they want to learn about them. They’re really sweet and open with their knowledge of anything that they have access to. They’re all spectacular dressers and very cool. What do you think, Rose? 

Rose: Well, we’ve also met some guys that aren’t assholes. Some guys register for our engine classes too. A few people have asked us “this isn’t specifically just for women, is it?” Because that’s what we were known for. Car Krush is very punk rock adjacent. In a way it sorts itself out. But I mean, it’s car enthusiasts, but it is people that don’t need it to be branded a certain way or delivered to them a certain way. 

Nina: What’s the experience been like for you working in the auto industry? 

Rose: With women in automotive, so many people just can’t accept it. I feel like automotive largely goes out of its way to exclude women. I’ve had men tell me to go make them a sandwich. And to be quiet because the men are talking. They said these things while I was being top paid. So I found the door.

I’d been in street rod shops up until that point and I was like, “I don’t think this is a good place for me anymore.” And that person went out of his way to prove it to me. 

And so that’s what Car Krush is offering, a slice of automotive that isn’t like what the other 99% of it is like. 

But I think in terms of doing the classes, it does give a lot of people proximity to what it’s like to just see and touch the cars. I think that we’ve had a lot of really positive experiences with the engine class in that way. We’re showing people that there’s actually a limited number of core ingredients to an engine. 

Nina: It was really amazing watching Emily take the engine apart and do it so casually. It felt really special to be able to see how it all comes together since it’s not something a lot of people know much about. 

So any plans to do events in the future? 

Emily working on the Car Krush class engine, 2025, Portland, Oregon, photography by Nina.

Emily: I would love to do another block party or car show. They are so fun. It takes a lot of money to throw those events. But as soon as I can, I would love to do another one. But basically right now it’s just focusing on the classes and the podcast. 

Nina: Nice. The podcast is a great resource. You put a ton of work into it.

Emily:  It is a lot of work. That’s the thing, I’m coming to the point where I’m starting to get serious about working more and having a more professional job. So Car Krush has to go on the backburner a little bit. I’ve given so much and have gotten a lot back as far as personal satisfaction, but it’s not paying the bills. You got to live. You do have to pay bills.

Nina: Definitely. I’m curious what that’s like for you to organize something and also make room for it to shift or change over time? 

Rose: You mean the freedom to change the project without backlash, because you’re at the top of the top of the creative process? Yeah. I think that it can be confusing because sometimes if you come up with a formula, you can become a slave to the formula. You’re like, “but this is what people expect.” And I think another thing is that you have things going on inside your life, but you also have things happening outside of you in the world. We don’t have a lot of control over that. 

I started doing my magazine in 2011. And I haven’t published in a couple of years now. With a world like this I thought, who needs a magazine? What are the next four days going to look, or the next four years? It’s hard but I’m saving my energy for other things. I keep thinking I might just have to jump the van up here and throw all my energy into something else because my immediate personal safety is coming up as a concern. I just had a nasty phone call with a member of someone in my van club. I’ve known him since 2009. And he wanted to ask me all these questions about me being trans. It basically devolved into the point of him accusing me of being a rapist because I go to the bathroom.

Nina: That’s just awful.

Rose: Yeah, so it’s getting to this place where I feel like I’m wasting my energy with these people because some just don’t care to understand. And then there’s others who do support you but still haven’t considered that when they invite you somewhere, it might not even be safe for me to travel there.

I used to travel cross-country every summer for Van Nationals. And there’s places where I’m just like, no, I’m not going to go there. Even if the destination seems fine. There’s a lot of gas stations in between. Passing through Wyoming the last time I did was unnerving, even though the year before it was cool. I got stalked by cops in a small town while just getting gas. 

Nina: That’s really tough. What about locally, what has your experience been like with the car scene in Portland? What’s it like organizing a group like Car Krush in this town?

Rose: I think that Portland is such a ripe place to have community and art based groups and adventures. I think if anybody wants to have a space in automotive, they should be doing a zine or a podcast or figuring out how to make their own version or pocket of it. We’ve been paired up with the shop that I’m in, which is called Q-Hut. There’s a motorcycle club in the shop and they teach motorcycle maintenance classes. They told us after the fact that they were actually inspired by our engine class and started doing their own. We feed off of each other and cross-promote a lot, so it’s cool to be in a community. I think Portland just sort of makes that easy. Portland is so DIY and community based that it’s fertile ground for people to make their own communities here. 

Nina: Other than your classes at Car Krush do you have any resources that you would share with someone who’s interested in getting more into fixing their own car or just cars in general? 

Emily: The classes at Clackamas Community College are awesome. Lauren and I took the fix-your-own-car classes there a couple summers ago. You can pick a project and then they’ll walk you through it. They also give you access to tools and a lift. And they teach you how an actual mechanic would do things and the language used. They also teach car restoration classes where you can paint stuff. Oregon State has similar classes.

Hawthorne Auto is great for car maintenance classes. And the Oregon Tool Library is a community place where you can rent all sorts of tools. 

Rose: I feel like I’m one of the rare people that likes to learn from books. You have to learn the language of something, which books can really help with. A lot of times people want to talk to an expert to learn that, so they come to us. We usually try to send people away with a book of some type to help.

Nina: So what’s next for you both? 

Emily: Our new podcast, The Pile Up, is coming out. It’s pretty funny. 

Rose: It’s inspired by this podcast we really like from the UK called No Such Thing as a Fish. It’s five people who are researchers on the show. They present four new facts they found each week that are always interesting. We were like, let’s do something that’s like that but with cars. Emily has a huge catalog of documentation of women that are coming up or getting established in the automotive scene.

Emily: There’s parts where we laugh so hard that we can’t stop laughing for a minute. We’ll also have some different classes coming starting in the spring including the engine class, a metal class, and we’ll see what else. I’d love to do events again in the future.

Nina: Amazing. Well thank you both so much for taking the time to talk today. And if you ever need a volunteer let me know! 

---

Emily and Rose, 2023, Portland, Oregon, photography by James Rexroad, courtesy of Emily.

Emily Olivia Tyler lives in Portland, OR. When she’s not doing Car Krush she can be found window shopping or dancing with her friends. 

She can be reached at emily@carkrush.com

Rose Brooks is a metal fabricator and artist from Portland, OR. She occasionally publishes under the moniker Custom Vanner magazine. Her bubble windows for vans are like jewelry and she always appreciates a good hair day for what is.

She can be reached at customvanner@gmail.com

https://carkrush.com/

Nina Vichayapai makes art that explores what it means to be at the intersections of society’s margins and peripheries. Through her practice she invites you to be neighbors with her in occupying unlikely intersections and celebrate yours too. 

https://www.nvichayapai.com/