More women muscle in on world of vintage cars

Caroline Cassini, now 29, may have startled some neighbors in West Orange, N.J., when she announced that, rather than applying to an East Coast liberal arts college, she would follow a path charted by her family and pursue a curriculum in automotive restoration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

"If you've got this passion, you must follow your dream," she said.

After graduation, Cassini went to work for Fantasy Junction, a well-known dealer of vintage automobiles in Emeryville, Calif. At the height of the pandemic last year, she sold a 1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster for $850,000.

"It was a big thrill," she said. "Prewar cars are my special love."

Tabetha Hammer's interest in collectible vehicles began on the Pueblo, Colo., farm where she was born 33 years ago. "I grew up working with my hands," she said. "It's part of who I am."

In high school, Hammer restored a 1935 John Deere tractor that her grandfather had bought from a rancher. "I didn't go on any dates or see any movies that summer," she said, estimating she spent more than 200 hours fixing it up. Her efforts paid off when she became the first woman to win a nationwide tractor restoration contest sponsored by Chevron and the National FFA Organization.

That victory led to a scholarship at McPherson College in Kansas, one of the nation's few institutions offering specialized degrees in vehicular preservation and restoration. This year, Hammer was named president and CEO of America's Automotive Trust, based in Tacoma, Wash. The organization's stated mission: "To honor and expand America's automotive heritage."

Whether their interest lies in vintage motor sports, automotive preservation and collecting or all of the above, "more and more young women want to participate," said Theresa Gilpatrick, former longtime executive director of the Ferrari Club of America. She urged younger women to "go for it" and added, "Get on LinkedIn, search for women in the niche you're interested in. Reach out and don't be bashful."

To encourage such interest, for the first time in its 70-year history, the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Carmel, Calif., presented a stand-alone women's forum this month.

The event, "Women Who Love Their Cars," featured introductory remarks by Lyn St. James, the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award, and Sandra Button, chair of the Pebble Beach Co., which produces the Concours event. Panelists include Renee Brinkerhoff, the first woman to win her class in La Carrera Panamericana race in Mexico, who has campaigned her Porsche 356 in rallies around the globe to combat child trafficking, as well as well-known vintage car collectors Jacque Connor, Merle Mullin and Lisa Taylor.

"Our mantra is to get women in the left seat," said a forum co-chair, Cindy Sisson, CEO of GSEvents, which recently introduced "Shifting Gears" Zoom meetings and podcasts aimed at female car enthusiasts. "Our forum will be an opportunity for the other gender to express their love of and for cars."

In June, Hagerty, among the world's largest insurer of collector cars and specialty vehicles, offered its perspective on women's impact on the world of classic conveyances. According to the firm, though still small in absolute numbers, the number of its female policyholders grew almost 30% between 2010-20. The biggest increases were among women in Generation X (41-56 years old) and millennials (24-40).

One of the most ambitious studies of women's interest in collectible automobiles was undertaken last year by the Key, the official magazine of the Classic Car Trust in Liechtenstein. The survey covered 1,100 women in the U.S., England, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland, including those "on the front line of participation"; those who shared their enthusiasm with husbands or partners; and women "who do not have a relationship with classic cars."

More than 70% said they responded to classic cars emotionally, with "positive" feelings. "The most requested item," the survey reported, "is to give the person in the passenger seat a real role in events. Young women, in particular, ask for gender equality."

How unusual are young women like Cassini, Hammer and Hackenberg? Not very, it turns out. In his exhaustive 2009 work "Fast Ladies: Female Racing Drivers 1888 to 1970," Jean-François Bouzanquet cataloged nearly 600 women who played important — if often underrecognized — roles in shaping automotive history.

One of the earliest was Bertha Benz, wife of Carl Benz, inventor of the world's first practical automobile in 1886. When her husband grew depressed over waning interest in his achievement, Benz crept out of the family home while he slept and drove the Benz Motorwagen on a historic 111-mile journey through southwest Germany from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back again — the first long-distance trip by a gasoline-powered automobile.

Along the way, she persuaded a local cobbler to cover the car's brake shoes with leather (thus inventing the first brake linings); cleared a blocked fuel line with her hatpin; and insulated the car's worn ignition cable with one of her garters.

Although Benz's trip drew widespread favorable attention and helped in the successful launch of her family's company, not all early female enthusiasts were so fortunate.

In the 1920s, Baroness Maria Antonietta Avanzo successfully raced — at circuits across Europe — with and against male contemporaries such as Enzo Ferrari and Tazio Nuvolari. Nonetheless, she also "spent her life fighting prejudice, ostracism, obstacles and men," recounts her biographer, Luca Malin, "especially when they would throw things in her way or herd sheep onto the track to keep her from getting to the finish line."