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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t care what others think,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got this passion, you must follow your dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduation, Ms. 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big thrill,\u201d she said. \u201cPrewar cars are my special love.\u201d Ms. Cassini was recently named general manager of The Market by Bonhams, a British website scheduled to launch in Europe this month and in the United States by year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
Tabetha Hammer\u2019s interest in collectible vehicles began on the Pueblo, Colo., farm where she was born 33 years ago. \u201cI grew up working with my hands,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s part of who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
In high school, Ms. Hammer restored a 1935 John Deere tractor that her grandfather had bought from a local rancher. \u201cI didn\u2019t go on any dates or see any movies that summer,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
That victory led to a scholarship at McPherson College in Kansas, one of the nation\u2019s few institutions offering specialized degrees in vehicular preservation and restoration. This year, Ms. Hammer was named president and chief executive of America\u2019s Automotive Trust, based in Tacoma, Wash. The organization\u2019s stated mission: \u201cTo honor and expand America\u2019s automotive heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gracie Hackenberg gained national attention when she was an engineering student at Smith College by converting a rust-bucket Mazda Miata into a full-blown racecar.<\/p>\n
Armed with a welding torch and bolstered by a college grant, a GoFundMe account and help from some enthusiastic classmates, she entered the 2017 Grassroots Motorsports Challenge in Florida, scoring a respectable seventh-place finish and coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Autoweek and other national media.<\/p>\n
Last year, Ms. Hackenberg earned her official Sports Car Club of America racing license. She is training as a mechanic at Arrow McLaren SP, a firm in Indianapolis that competes in the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series races.<\/p>\n
Whether their interest lies in vintage motorsports, automotive preservation and collecting, or all of the above, \u201cmore and more young women want to participate,\u201d said Theresa Gilpatrick, former longtime executive director of the Ferrari Club of America. She urges younger women to \u201cgo for it\u201d and added: \u201cGet on LinkedIn, search for women in the niche you\u2019re interested in. Reach out and don\u2019t be bashful.\u201d<\/p>\n
To encourage such interest, for the first time in its 70-year history the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d\u2019Elegance in Carmel, Calif., will present a stand-alone women\u2019s forum on Friday. The event, \u201cWomen Who Love Their Cars,\u201d will feature introductory remarks by Lyn St. James, the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award, and Sandra Button, chairman of the Pebble Beach Company, 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 the well-known vintage car collectors Jacque Connor, Merle Mullin and Lisa Taylor.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mantra is to get women in the left seat,\u201d said a forum co-chair, Cindy Sisson, chief executive of GSEvents, which recently introduced \u201cShifting Gears\u201d Zoom meetings and podcasts aimed at female car enthusiasts. \u201cOur forum will be an opportunity for the other gender to express their love of and for cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June, Hagerty, among the world\u2019s largest insurer of collector cars and specialty vehicles, offered its perspective on women\u2019s 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 percent between 2010 and 2020. The biggest increases were among women in Generation X (41 to 56 years old) and millennials (24 to 40).<\/p>\n
Moreover, Hagerty notes, its data does not reflect the many collectible vehicles that women hold jointly with a husband or partner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe collectible car world has become far more diverse in recent years,\u201d said John Wiley, Hagerty\u2019s manager of valuation analytics. \u201cAt the same time, what constitutes an enthusiast vehicle has changed, too. Thirty years ago, serious collectors only bought prewar cars. Twenty years ago, they bought 1950s and \u201960s Ferraris. Ten years ago, they bought Porsches.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow collectible cars are more varied, and so are their owners. Women collectors seem more focused on vintage vehicles they can actually use,\u201d Mr. Wiley added, \u201cat \u2018cars and coffee\u2019 and other informal events.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the most ambitious studies of women\u2019s 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 United States, England, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland, including those \u201con the front line of participation\u201d; those who shared their enthusiasm with husbands or partners; and, finally, women \u201cwho do not have a relationship with classic cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 70 percent said they responded to classic cars emotionally, with \u201cpositive\u201d feelings. \u201cThe most requested item,\u201d the survey reported, \u201cis to give the person in the passenger seat a real role in events, especially when it comes to driving.\u201d It added, \u201cYoung women, in particular, ask for gender equality.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a girl, Ms. Cassini helped showcase her family\u2019s impressive car collection. The payoff: sharing in two Cassini Best in Show triumphs at the Pebble Beach Concours. The winners were a 1938 Horch Sport Cabriolet in 2004 and a 1934 Dietrich-bodied Packard Twelve Convertible in 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had incredible mentors,\u201d Ms. Cassini said. Among those she cited: her father, Joseph Cassini, a retired New Jersey judge and well-known car collector; Rob Myers, a restorer in Canada and a Sotheby\u2019s auction house partner; Anne Brockinton Lee, a respected collector as well; and Lloyd Buck, her teacher at the Academy of Art University.<\/p>\n
How unusual are young women like Ms. Cassini, Ms. Hammer and Ms. Hackenberg? Not very, it turns out. In his exhaustive 2009 work, \u201cFast Ladies: Female Racing Drivers 1888 to 1970,\u201d Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Bouzanquet cataloged nearly 600 women who played important \u2014 if often underrecognized \u2014 roles in shaping automotive history.<\/p>\n
One of the earliest was Bertha Benz, wife of Carl Benz, inventor of the world\u2019s first practical automobile in 1886. When her husband grew depressed over waning interest in his achievement, Mrs. Benz crept out of the family home while he slept and drove the Benz Motorwagen on a historic 111-mile journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back again \u2014 the first long-distance trip by a gasoline-powered automobile.<\/p>\n
Along the way, she persuaded a local cobbler to cover the car\u2019s brake shoes with leather (thus inventing the first brake linings); cleared a blocked fuel line with her hatpin; and, in what Mr. Bouzanquet called \u201cthe height of eroticism,\u201d insulated the car\u2019s worn ignition cable with one of her garters.<\/p>\n
Although Mrs. Benz\u2019s trip drew widespread favorable attention and helped in the successful launch of her family\u2019s company, not all early female enthusiasts were so fortunate.<\/p>\n
In the 1920s, Baroness Maria Antonietta Avanzo successfully raced \u2014 at circuits across Europe \u2014 with and against male contemporaries such as Enzo Ferrari and Tazio Nuvolari. Nonetheless, she also \u201cspent her life fighting prejudice, ostracism, obstacles and men,\u201d recounts her biographer, Luca Malin, \u201cespecially when they would throw things in her way or herd sheep onto the track to keep her from getting to the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Happily, women today can anticipate fewer barriers, at least of the bovid kind.<\/p>\n
The Pebble Beach Company Foundation, for example, offers scholarships, among them one in honor of the late Phil Hill, America\u2019s first Formula 1 champion and a longtime Concours participant. Much of the foundation\u2019s assistance goes to young people pursuing careers in automotive preservation and restoration, often at institutions such as McPherson College and the Academy of Art University.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes a lot of sense,\u201d Mrs. Button said. \u201cBasically, our show is an historical celebration, and many of the people now actively engaged in restoring classic vehicles are at or near retirement age. We want the next generation, regardless of gender, to share in and contribute to what we love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other potential sources of support include the RPM Foundation, an arm of America\u2019s Automotive Trust; the Hagerty Foundation; and others. This summer, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles unveiled an \u201cincubator program\u201d targeted at female-owned California start-ups in the auto industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t about women in a man\u2019s world,\u201d said Diane Parker, who led the Petersen project\u2019s advisory team. \u201cIt\u2019s about human beings living their passion.\u201d<\/p>\n