Are there many women collecting cars or is it a man thing?

[DDTJRAC]

Are there many women collecting cars or is it a man thing?

[marcapra]

I think you already know the answer to that.  There are some women old car collectors, but it's primarily a guy thing.  As my mom once said "women are practical creatures.  Men are impractical dreamers."

[JV Puleo]

Probably not many but we've had several ladies on the forum. I guess it also depends on what you define as "collecting"...there may be more have a single car and aren't actively looking for more. That fits a lot of the men as well...myself included. I've a friend whose husband had 3 MGs,TC, TD & TF)...when he died she kept them and continued on as a member of the local British Car club, driving them regularly. The machine shop forum I participate in has several women members that appear to be very competent machinists so, like cars, it's mostly men but not exclusively so.

Edited Saturday at 12:45 PM by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[kings32]

M y daughter and granddaughter bouth have cars . My daughter was president of the region . grand daughter is web master and editorof region news letter. M wife has bought all our cars .Yes there is .

[alsancle]

There are some women who own fantastic collections,  some of them because they started with their husbands who have passed and some of which did it all on their own.

[TAKerry]

My wife has a phrase she uses all too often. It is appropriate most of the time. I keep telling her to write a book using it as a title. 
"Men are idiots"

Make of it what you will.

[a griffin]

I know several female car collectors. One has about 18 cars (newest mid 30s), one has 7 (mostly Hudsons) and my wife has 2.

Plus several others that are active in the hobby.

[Peter J.Heizmann]

33 minutes ago, TAKerry said:

My wife has a phrase she uses all too often. It is appropriate most of the time. I keep telling her to write a book using it as a title. 
"Men are idiots"

Make of it what you will.

Ouch!

[Larry Schramm]

My wife likes her Corvette & Camaro.  See below.

[Tom C]

I know of a few women that own classic cars and attend shows. Several women are on the board of our local club.

There is another girl that coordinates the best shows I ever attended.

[John_S_in_Penna]

As you would expect, men, being interested

in mechanical things, are the great majority.

But many wives participate enthusiastically

with their husbands in AACA events and help

with club activities;  for most of them, the

social aspects may be more important than the

cars, and the cars are mostly facilitators.

 

However, I know Patricia Swigart, who is the

proprietress of the Swigart Museum in 

Pennsylvania, and she has been an avid collector:

 

 

[CChinn]

Lorrie Oaks is the President of the NC AACA Region and she is very active in our hobby along with her husband, Jeff, an AACA National Board Member. She owns and shows her car locally and nationally. In addition the President of the Classic Car Club of America is Vicki Ziegler. I’m sure there are many other women involved in our hobby, but those 2 come to mind. To answer your question:  yes women are car collectors and are contributing to our hobby. It’s not just a guy thing

[AVS619]

My wife is extremely active in the old car hobby helping me with, and touring with me in, my brass era cars but she has three classics of her own, a Rolls-Royce, a Pierce-Arrow and a Cord. She is involved with the various clubs, producing artwork for promotions, tours and shows and even helps edit car related magazines. I think I am a very lucky man!

[TAKerry]

I will clarify my earlier post. Whenever you see someone doing something idiotic it usually involves a man. One hardly ever sees a woman doing dumb stuff. Hence every time she sees something like that out comes the "men are idiots".

 

I say that in reference to collecting old cars because there are times when I am busting my knuckles or the such and think to myself, 'why am I doing this?'

[gossp]

This question is actually my headline on dating apps 

[Steve_Mack_CT]

Mrs. Mack is actively interested and involved.  She has a great eye for automobilia and has found around half of those type of collectibles we have accumulated over the years.  She learned how to drive a Model A and loves driving the MB 560 SL.

 

She really wanted a yellow, prewar Packard convertible and called me at work to say she spotted one on Tom's (Laferriere) site a couple years ago.  I guess the A is mine and the Packard is hers.

Edited Saturday at 12:54 AM by Steve_Mack_CT (see edit history)

[Larry Schramm]

I like many others on this site have a great wife.  We goes on about six tours a summer and two or three of those tours are with our grandsons ages 6 & 9.  The oldest one has been touring with us for four years.  The younger one started this year, the first summer after he finished kindergarten.

 

We also put on the Lansing-Dearborn tour every year that is connected with the Old Car Festival at Greenfield Village with another couple.  

 

On top of that my daughter and son-in-law are now touring with us. They are in their mid 30's. They are members of the HCCA.  They both love touring.

[Oz Dodge 4]

On a recent trip up to the city (Perth) to a "Packard day" with a friend that owns a 1925 Packard, I was privileged to view "this" 1956 Packard Patrician that had only recently been imported by a very pleasant young lady called Jacinta. Although she comes from a family of enthusiasts, "she" sought out, negotiated, purchased, imported, repaired, registered and drove this car to the meeting, and this is "her" car, not someone else's that she is just using. "She" is the owner and maintainer, and although she is a little unusual in the degree of involvement, she is not unique, and I think and hope we will see more like her as the penny finally drops that it's alright to like classic cars no matter which gender you are.

(that's her in the pink cap)

 

 

[rocketraider]

I was raised in a family who firmly believed anyone could do anything they set their mind to do, regardless of sex, race or anything else. Their belief was, and remains, that people are limited only by themselves.

 

A point of pride in the family is that my Aunt Tillie was the first lady cabby in Baltimore, starting driving during WW2. Her sister, my Aunt Evelyn, was on the ground floor of getting Social Security Administration running. Neither was a car "collector" per se but they both loved cars and driving their whole lives.

 

Tillie had some stories about chauffeuring soldiers and sailors on leave around Bawlmer during the War too, but as a self-described "tough broad" she never had any problems out of service members. The fact she toted a .45 revolver with an eight inch barrel might have had owt to do with that.

 

Janet Cofer of the Lynchburg Region influenced me greatly when I decided to join AACA in 1989. She, too, enjoyed cars and driving and I believe held office in Lynchburg Region. We were both members of another organization but when she found I liked old cars, she really encouraged me to join AACA.

 

We had several women in our now-defunct local Oldsmobile Club who owned and maintained their own Oldsmobiles.

 

So yes, women are more involved in the old car hobby than you might think.

[hidden_hunter]

We don't make a distinction, its our families car (including our kids)

[Robert G. Smits]

My wife has a 71 SuperBee and two 380SL Mercedes 

[Studemax]

In my old Studebaker chapter, many of the gals were insistent in choosing the cars that were purchased and driven, or telling their man to hurry up and finish that car so they could drive it to events. For one of our couples, the female was the Studebaker person in the relationship. They were HER cars, she bought them and drove them. He liked Jaguars. Many couples have multiple cars, and it wasn't unusual to have each drive a Studebaker to an event.

[DDTJRAC]

15 hours ago, a griffin said:

I know several female car collectors. One has about 18 cars (newest mid 30s), one has 7 (mostly Hudsons) and my wife has 2.

Plus several others that are active in the hobby.

 

The 18 cars for a gal is impressive! Not being a car collector or around them other than on this forum I don't really know. I've only seen car collectors on TV and they have all been all men.

[JV Puleo]

Virtually everything you see on TV about this hobby is so distorted as to be a caricature rather than describe the character of the old car world. It is bad enough to create a real problem for genuine collectors that often find themselves trying to deal with members of the general public that have an insanely unrealistic impression of what things cost and how much work is involved.

[60FlatTop]

16 hours ago, TAKerry said:

My wife has a phrase she uses all too often. It is appropriate most of the time. I keep telling her to write a book using it as a title. 
"Men are idiots"

Make of it what you will.

 

My wife was listing off a few of my faults one time and she said "Men tend to generalize." All I did was ask her to repeat that.

 

I looked at the title of this topic and thought Oh Boy, that's not click bait but it's bait of some sort.

Edited Saturday at 12:58 PM by 60FlatTop (see edit history)

[CChinn]

Reality tv shows or the internet are not the places to learn about anything let alone the old car hobby. The AACA would welcome you to attend one of our shows and you can meet the great men AND women who enjoy our hobby

Edited Saturday at 01:29 PM by CChinn (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

14 minutes ago, CChinn said:

Reality tv shows or the internet are not the places to learn about anything ....

I'll second that. The most popular oxymoron in use today is "I researched it on the internet."

[60FlatTop]

It is the throwing and dropping things that gets me, same with the house remodeling shows my wife watches before the evening news. They march in with sledge hammers smashing walls and knocking down cupboards. I sure don't want them in my house.

 

"Oh, people want to see that" said the producer. I keep thinking about that Monty Python "Funny walk" skit from years ago. It may have been Buddy Hacket who once said he practiced his funny walk all winter long so he could go to the Catskills in the summer and get paid for doing it. Those very basic seeds of the entertainment industry do tend to de-legitimatize it for me.

 

I do enjoy the origins of Shakespeare's perennial "Rose by any other name" line. I could go for more of that. (perennial/rose, wink wink nudge nudge) 

[playswithbrass]

Our cars have always been considered to be ours, bought with family funds and maintained with the same. Peter does the work on them because that is what he does, enjoys doing and is good at. I have other interests- collecting early motoring books and postcards. 
But, I think you will find that in some households, the cars are considered to be a “guy” thing and “what my husband does” until there is a parting of the ways and suddenly the contents of the garage become “ ours” and fair game. 
Erica
 

 

[Steve_Mack_CT]

10 minutes ago, playswithbrass said:

Our cars have always been considered to be ours, bought with family funds and maintained with the same. 

 

 

Same! 😊👍

[Restorer32]

In 47 years of restoring

professionally we have only worked for one person of the female persuasion, and she was only interested in her car as a classy way to transport potential real estate buyers.

[Dodge55Royal]

Why aren't there many men who collect Barbie dolls? Because it's mainly a woman thing....

[TAKerry]

I was at a pretty decent sized car show today, probably 140+ cars. There were quite a few woman and I noticed what seemed like more than usual woman driving their own cars. So maybe there is a shift happening, not a bad thing.

[Billy Kingsley]

I have noticed a lot more women at car shows than in previous years. As both spectators and owners of cars.

The number is going up, but is still far too low. 

 

I would not be such a car nut if not for my mom's influence. She introduced me to the hobby and still plans to attend car shows. 

[JV Puleo]

5 hours ago, Billy Kingsley said:

I would not be such a car nut if not for my mom's influence. She introduced me to the hobby and still plans to attend car shows. 

I'm glad you mentioned that Billy. When I was starting out it was my mother and grandmother who encouraged me...my grandmother loaned me the money to buy a set of tires for my '27 Cadillac. My father couldn't have cared less and regarded the whole endeavor as a stupid waste of time...I have to give him credit though, he never made any effort to stop me.

Edited yesterday at 04:50 AM by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[rocketraider]

6 hours ago, Dodge55Royal said:

Why aren't there many men who collect Barbie dolls? Because it's mainly a woman thing....

I worked with a 24 year old Brony (guy who collects "My Little Pony" figures).

 

Everyone has "stuff" that gives them pleasure. People think my Oldsmobiles and clocks are a waste of time, but they make me happy and are hurting no one. So I tend to be quite tolerant of others' obsessions.

 

And I think it's great that women, and others you don't normally think of as being into cars, enjoy their cars.

[John_Mc]

Just look at Hershey…………VERY few women.

[TAKerry]

53 minutes ago, John_Mc said:

Just look at Hershey…………VERY few women.

Just a bit of irony. My wife tolerates my car habit. She has gone to a couple of big events and she enjoys them as much as she can. We went to the Studebaker Museum while visiting friends in the SBend area. Same trip we hit the Gilmore. She enjoyed both but not enough to let me stop by the ACD museum or Henry Ford (always good for another trip). Anyway for the most part I got to Hershey solo. A few years ago she had the day off work and tagged along. She had a great time looking through the swap meet. 

[Paul Dobbin]

i have a friend with 23 cars, a car guy.  His first wife had a 1930 Model A Ford 4 door.   He lost her and the Model A

]to a divorce   He married his second wife, who was a widow with a 1930 Model  Ford 4 door.   She seems to like all

antique cars and antique car tours too.

[Annie G]

At the moment, I only own 2 vehicles (In my signature line).  I'd love to own more! However, time and space are keeping me from purchasing more.