1969 VW Beetle Baja Build, 1972 Karmann Ghia & Automotive Journalism with Hagerty's Eva Gregory 🐞📝

Flipping your daily driver on the highway is usually the end of a car story. For Eva Gregory, it was the wake-up call that started a new one. 🚙💥

In this episode, we sit down with Eva—host of the Be Differential podcast and a voice at Hagerty—to discuss how a terrifying accident in her Honda CR-V shifted her perspective on life and led her to buy a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle. But she's not just restoring it; she's driving it 700 miles from Pennsylvania to transform it into a full-blown Baja Bug for off-road adventures.

We also dive into her love for the "poor man's Porsche" (the Karmann Ghia), the intricacies of pinstriping culture, and her advice for women breaking into the automotive media world.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• 💥 The CR-V Crash: The harrowing story of flipping her Honda CR-V on the highway and how walking away from the wreck changed her approach to car ownership.
• 🐞 The Baja Bug Project: Eva’s ambitious plan to take a stock 1969 VW Beetle (currently sitting in PA) and convert it into an off-road Baja beast.
• 🚗 The Karmann Ghia: Why a 1972 Karmann Ghia became a beloved part of her garage (despite some questionable aftermarket steering wheel choices by the previous owner).
• 🎙️ Be Differential: How Eva launched her podcast to highlight women and unique voices in the automotive and motorsport industries.
• 🎨 Pinstripe Nostalgia: A look at how details like a red pinstripe on a vintage Honda CRX can trigger deep automotive memories.

Eva's favorite episode is "Air Cooled and Carefree – Guinevere’s VW Beetle Tales and Family Restoration Traditions" https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/16886205

Whether you're a fan of air-cooled VWs, interested in automotive journalism, or just love a story about turning a traumatic event into a passion project, this episode is a must-listen.

🔗 Links & Resources:

• Listen to Eva's show: Be Differential Podcast
• Find our 60+ episodes and more on LinkTree 🔗🌲 https://linktr.ee/carsloved

📢 Join the Conversation: Have you ever built a Baja Bug or off-road conversion? Let us know on Instagram @toallthecarsivelovedbefore

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Don't Forget to Rate & Review to keep the engines of automotive storytelling—and personal restoration—running strong.

Transcript

Welcome to Cars Love Nation

Christian 0:04

Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where our guests are unique, each auto has an era and every car tells a story. So you know yes, indeed you know it's time to plug in, get a little grease under the fingernails and slip on that favorite car thing t-shirt, hat or jacket. So let's welcome back listeners all over this fine country and globe. We call it Cars Love Nation. Hey, for the first time, doug, have you ever heard of Kazakhstan? I have Other side of the planet. First time we've had a listener there, really excited. We have some return listeners from ireland. I was there, you were last summer. The driving is just um, um a little bit of a head scratch.

Christian 0:57

Other side of the road, very narrow road, I don't know what, why there have to be immovable rock walls covered in ivy very close to the road. A lot of trickery, um, but the car came back in one piece. Hey, welcome back. Listeners to it in san antonio, texas, portland, oregon, plano, texas, columbia, maryland. That's close to you, it is detroit, michigan. How about that motor city, motor city in tucson, arizona. By the way, I think half of those cities are in the song route 66. That's just struck me. Remember that song I do. Route 66, I mean, I think get your kicks on route 66. Yeah, now I you know. A couple years ago I visited amarillo which I think in in they had like the historic 66 kind of where the whole thing started, this big plaque and a sign and I got kind of a duplicate sign hanging up in my. I'll take a picture. Maybe we can get that on the photo carousel.

Christian 1:55

Please please, hey, yeah, so do we have any new photos for the carousel?

Eva 2:00

I think you did a lot of work. Speaking of, you did a lot of work speaking of.

Christian 2:02

You did a lot of work on that, so let's chat about the website for a moment before we bring today's guests into our garage, okay, so?

Doug 2:12

uh, yeah, so I dug up a lot of pictures from our past. Yes, my past, your past and our listeners past too, right? Our listeners past yep they are guests that sent us pictures.

Doug 2:24

Yep, we, we love pictures from our listeners too. You don't have to be on the show to submit a picture. Send us a great one. So, uh, yeah, I've been updating that. You know it went from three to I don't know 12. Um, there's a picture of me in that you took of that Ferrari in 2004 that we rented the F. Uh, what is it? 348, I thought 348. 348 TS. Yep, yep, yeah, yep.

Website Updates and Photo Carousel

Christian 2:54

And that was good times. That was good times. I don't recommend the top down in Vegas in August in the middle of the day it's the greatest thing in the world First thing in the morning. But you know, we did the whole circuit, we did the strip, we did Hoover Dam and then, you know, when it was time to bring it back noontime we were melting Dream Car Rentals by the by. If Dream Car Rentals feels like sponsoring, yeah, so thanks for the update on the site.

Christian 3:22

Good news uh, yeah, visit carslovecom is what we're talking about. Carslovecom uh, you can reach out to us over email, which a lot of people like you christian at carslovecom. He's doug at carslovecom, or info at carslovecom. I guess we just hired this guy named info and that's his email address, so feel free to reach out to him.

Doug 3:45

Right, he's a new hire yeah, yeah, input info for sure speaking of uh, so pinstripe you.

Eva 3:53

You were, you were out and about, and it was a little bit of man I gotta tell you we love we send pictures of cars back and forth to each other.

Christian 4:02

Oh, I gotta send you this picture of. I'm all into jeeps right now jeep show, whatever and I want to buy an old jeep. That's, that's my latest obsession. Um that if I weren't paying for kids to go to college I would get, but and I saw an old jeep renegade in traffic. Old, old, old, beautiful, perfect, but anyway, toss it over you. Yes, you sent a picture of I, was it a crx?

Pinstripe Nostalgia and Fashion

Doug 4:26

it was a first gen honda crx and made my day amazing shape, black. And you know, after looking at the picture I'm like wow, there's a pinstripe on it, a red pinstripe and, even more interesting, the pinstripe wasn't faded. It was like perfect I. I would assume somebody had that car repainted. It looked so good and they went through the trouble to add the pinstripe. But what do you think about pinstripes?

Christian 4:57

I love them. I love the fine detail. Um, um, I had a car that was just this gorgeous green, had the little gold pinstripe down the side. I like when they're intricate. Um, yeah, it kind of reminds me of, uh, it kind of when I see pinstripe on a car and it's all got like the maybe the Von Dutch styling or curvy and wavy. It reminds me of, you know, some tattoos people have on their arm or some like tattoos, that sort of thing. Very personal, very personal.

Doug 5:27

Yeah, and you mentioned something about Von Dutch right and I think it was Ken Howard or Kenny Von Dutch right. He became like the guy behind the scenes who made pinstripes popular and I don't know if they're still popular on motorcycles, but that was a big place, Absolutely. You see it everywhere.

Christian 5:50

Yeah, it's one of these things. Where that was, you know, that turned out to be his life's art and then it just kind of moved on into the mainstream. Its name, you'll see, is kind of his. I don't know if it's its own fashion label, but you will see it there? I think its own fashion label, but you will see it there. Um, yeah, speaking of, let's see, oh sure, yeah, uh, we mentioned at the top of the hour you got to slip on the shirt, so you've got. You've got a great one on today.

Doug 6:11

Yeah, yep, so believe it or not, great deal at old, old navy. Back to the future flying delorean not too gaudy actually no, and old navy.

Christian 6:23

If you feel like giving us some money, that's fine too, but they get fantastic all right.

Doug 6:27

So we've been them money for years, so we've talked about.

Meet Ava Gregory: Automotive Journey

Christian 6:30

Indeed, indeed, we've talked about shirts, we've talked about pinstriping, we've talked about. So it is time to pivot and get to today's guest. So, doug, how did today's very special guest make their way into our virtual garage? So our very special guest.

Doug 6:47

I in listening to lots of podcasts I can cross her podcast be differential and uh, great, great podcast. Uh, all about most mostly about women in automobiles and motorsport industries. So and we've had, we've had such great father-daughters, just women who've grown up in the motorsports or just got involved. Maybe they wanted to do something with their dad, maybe they went to one of the colleges Weber State or McPherson right and they just they want to do cars, from students to professionals, from hobbyists to racers, everybody else.

Christian 7:26

Ava Gregory, welcome in. How are you today?

Eva 7:29

I'm so well. I'm looking forward to this conversation and thank you for having me.

Christian 7:33

Not as much as we are. It's wow, which is kind of having an idol on the show here, so very pleased that you visited our garage. So what have you been into recently? What, if you so much going on in your world with the youtube, um, the podcast, where do you start? What's the latest?

Eva 7:54

yeah, that's such a tough question. I definitely have a lot going on, but I'll actually speak to something that is about to be a project that I'm beginning. I um have a 69 beetle that's been living up in Pennsylvania for the past couple of years and next month I'm going to go pick it up and drive it down so I can Baja it out and begin that build to hopefully compete in it pretty soon here. So that's that's most pressing but always ongoing project.

Christian 8:20

I love that. So wait a minute. Pennsylvania is that where you grew up.

Eva 8:23

So my family's from up north between Pennsylvania, connecticut and upstate New York. But I have my dad's living up there and has been for the past couple of years, so it's been on his property.

Christian 8:33

Roger Dodger. So does it get driven much? Is there an undercoat of rust on it? What do you? Is that what we got to work on, or there's certainly an undercoat of rest.

Eva 8:44

My dad does start it, but he does not drive it as often as I would probably like him to. But that's okay, we're keeping it alive and really I mean the goal is to drive it down. It's around a 700 mile trail path from where he lives to where I live. So the goal is to kind of do a little test run and then do a complete like through you know overhaul of what needs to be done and what needs to be assessed.

Christian 9:09

So what are the odds? It'll make it down driving itself. Are you going to have kind of a trailing car or will you be? Will you be behind the driver's seat of this car while it's on the flatbed of an 18 wheeler, which is probably what are the odds? What is Vegas saying about all that?

Eva 9:24

So I actually daily this car in college, is my only vehicle, and I replaced the engine in it myself with one other kind of mentor and some YouTube videos in 2020. So I think that the survival rate is actually pretty decent and, luckily, I am very acutely aware of its inner workings and if I'm on the side of the road, I have confidence that we can get it back on the road.

Christian 9:48

Absolutely so. Yeah, you know where all the skeletons are, in that particular rolling closet, which I love, and I can just feel the waves. Doug's head is about to explode with all the wonderful avenues of discussion we have here. Where do we start, doug? Where do we go with this right now?

Doug 10:05

Yeah, well, I think we go back to everybody's first car. Right, yeah, we hop in the time machine. Right, it's on my shirt, let's do it.

Eva 10:15

And we go all the way back to Ava's first car, which was it was a 99 Honda CR-V and I would like to preface that I did not grow up in the automotive space or have that hobby and interest, so it was very much point A to point B, what I could afford, what my options were. So yeah, 99 Honda CRV was my old trustee for multiple years until I obliterated it. But that's okay until.

Doug 10:44

I obliterated it, but that's okay. Obliterate it Well before it got obliterated. How did you find it?

Eva 10:50

Yeah, so actually my dad found it. I mean, obviously I was young, so it was something. He did the online searches at the time and came across it and it just worked out to be a really good deal. From what I recall, it was like 3,500 bucks. Now I will say this was an older model even when I purchased it, so it had quite the life on it already, but it served me many memories.

Doug 11:13

And it's funny, my daughter's first car is a CR-V as well. I think it's a 2014.

Christian 11:20

All right, Now let's pray to the skies above that. It doesn't meet the same end as Ava's did Not to get that going yet, and I don't want to bring up memories and I don't want to step on Doug's toes.

Doug 11:32

You're giving it away.

Christian 11:35

Call it a segue immediately.

Doug 11:36

Well, you know it's funny. We've talked to a few people. What happened to your first car? I think about cash. He's like I still have it. What happened to your second car? He's like I still have it.

Eva 11:52

Right, um. So, eva, you couldn't have your first car without a second car. But what happened to your first car? So I this is I would also like to preface. This is not a testimony of my driving skills, but I did. I did total the vehicle. Um, I had it in college and, and prior to totaling it, I really did have so many great memories with this car. And I went to Georgia or I went to college in North Georgia, so it was a mountain town. It was, you know, the start of the Appalachian Trail, whatever.

Eva 12:19

I used to work at Atlanta Motorsports Park and was on my way to work one day and it had just started raining as I was going around this wide curve and when that happened, I began hydroplaning and understeering. And when that happened and I went to correct it, instead of the wheels that kind of inverting how you would anticipate they locked up completely. So I actually slid sideways and luckily it was just me there was nobody else involved in my car or any other vehicles but I slid through a turning lane and then hit a curb. And when I hit the curb I flipped and rolled two and a half times and I landed driver's side down and my seatbelt was stuck and so I just kind of was there for a minute, you know, and I, like I said I was on my way to work. So I called a colleague, my boss at the time and now great mentor and family friend. But I called him to let him know that I wasn't going to make it in and said, you know, I got in an accident. I'm okay, but I was still sideways when I was on the phone with him.

Eva 13:28

So at that point in time I had always carried a pocket knife and cut myself free. And once I kind of, like you know, came to, I guess, and cut myself free, climbed out, and who he had called was my roommate at the time who was working and got the call that I was in an accident. So she called my phone and I was just standing on the side of the road next to my sideways car before any emergency vehicles or anything arrived. And when the paramedics showed up I was literally on the call and I was like, hey, I've got to let you go, like they're here. And when they arrived they didn't know who got in the accident because I was truly fine, and I walked up to them and said, hey, how's it going and they were like you know we should ask you that and said fingers toes moving like we're good, but unfortunately, cosmetically because of the age I did total it, so that was unfortunate.

Doug 14:18

And then I got the 69 beetle yeah, and it sounds like you were pretty I don't know at the time, but you were pretty calm in that scenario yeah, I, uh, I really do handle stressful situations well.

Eva 14:31

Sounds like it and yeah, it was so funny. I just even more a tangent. But I called an ex-boyfriend at the time to come pick me up because I was about a mile and a half away from where I lived and I called to say, hey, can you just bring me home? I got in an accident and he pulled up and parked and was just flabbergasted to see my car sideways and he was like I thought you got in like a fender bender and I was like I would not have called you if I got in a fender bender.

Eva 14:58

So, yeah, it was handled very well, fortunately, definitely unfortunate circumstances, but it all ended up being okay and it set me on the trajectory to where I've been able to experience.

Doug 15:09

Yeah, yeah.

Eva 15:10

No.

Doug 15:10

I'm sure that helped you out. Go ahead, Christian.

Christian 15:14

You just want to get in here. So you mentioned something about the Atlanta Motor Speedway, that you were in Motorsports Park, atlanta Sports Park.

Eva 15:22

So there's two different facilities Atlanta Motor Speedway is south of Atlanta and Hampton and Atlanta Motorsports Park is in Dawsonville.

Christian 15:30

So one is a.

Eva 15:30

NASCAR-owned track and one is a private club track, so they have a go-karting facility and a main car course.

Christian 15:38

Is that where you got bitten by the odd? Yeah, she got a big nod. Okay, we can talk about that now or later, but what an influential place to start.

Doug 15:51

Yeah, you know and I'm just thinking about our, our last episode, christian with a Nigel. So CEO of coastline Academy, uh, coastline heavy, I don't know if you've heard of them, but uh, driving school and Christian watched Christian's teaching his youngest son how to drive and he found these great videos and one of them was what to do in an accident, and maybe we should have one off by Ava that says what to do if your CRV flips over truly, truly and I will say I have since I have since done driving courses and know what to do.

Eva 16:32

Now it, god forbid. You know there's a next time. So yeah, absolutely.

Christian 16:36

Yeah, but she strikes me as one of these unique people with just ice water in the veins. You know whether you look at her content. You listen to it very unflappable. But okay, I'm going to be quiet. This is Doug's portion. Here's the baton. Take it away, okay.

Karmann Ghia Dreams and Hagerty Career

Doug 16:52

So the car got total? Sadly it did, yep, but I think the next car, along with your career, right, or maybe the next car really steered you in that direction, so to speak, with manual steering, different than the power steering of the Honda CR-V. So what was your second car?

Eva 17:14

My second vehicle was a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, savannah-based, and I found it at a car show. It was a Volkswagen car meet. I was on my way out and saw it drive in with a for sale sign and had to go back for it.

Doug 17:31

Nice, nice. And how long after the? Was that? Pretty soon after the CRV met its fate.

Eva 17:37

It was pretty soon after, yeah, I think. Probably just a couple months, definitely less than less than six months. So yeah, not not too far. I think it was maybe. I think I totaled my car in October and then I think I had the Beetle by April.

Doug 17:52

So yeah, not too far. Okay, and you just happen to be at a car show because liking cars, right yeah, getting. That getting that bug, so to speak, bugs absolutely. Christian, you went to a car show in Florida called the great um rare air, rare air show yeah, rare, fabulous.

Eva 18:12

That's a great show. Oh, you've been to it as well.

Doug 18:15

I have yeah, okay, so is it a moving show, or you've been to it in Pensacola, where Christian is?

Eva 18:23

There was a version of it hosted in Atlanta.

Doug 18:26

Okay.

Eva 18:27

Yeah, there's been a couple years. It's typically held at the Porsche Experience Center in Atlanta.

Christian 18:32

Oh, that's cool, that's really really cool, yeah, the one down here was held on the grounds of five flags speed, five flags speedway, which is a well-known regional racetrack that hosts the snowball derby, which a lot of our listeners will know. It's a very famous short track race here, but, yeah, tons of space for everybody. Great day. I think it was in the fall. I think it was in the fall of last year. That's so perfect, perfect weather.

Doug 19:04

But yeah, yes, doug yeah, so uh, and you still have this Volkswagen right.

Eva 19:14

I do, yeah, so there was a sale that transacted a couple years ago, but it has made its way back to the family and is up in Pennsylvania.

Doug 19:27

Oh cool back their first cars, tracing them back, which apparently in the UK is a lot easier because they keep Christian. What did Dirk tell us, one of our other? They keep the same license plate for the life of the car.

Christian 19:43

Oh Is that right Christian.

Doug 19:44

The license plate stays with the car.

Christian 19:46

So actually when you've got you know I think the string convention is the first three or four characters are actually the letters of either the town or kind of the signifier of the town, the way that every airport is known by a three-letter signifier. So there the first few letters are the signifier of kind of the town or the local DMV, first few letters of the signifier of kind of the town or the local dmv. So you always kind of have an idea of um, where, the, where it was originally titled, which, yeah, I thought that was so interesting where here in the states. It's just all I've ever seen, unless you get a vanity plate, since I'm not vain, I wouldn't know anything about that. It's just a random string of letters and numbers now there's no intelligence built into the system.

Doug 20:35

Yeah, that was really clever. Well, it becomes a scavenger hunt, you know, challenge in the States, right, to figure it out. Yeah, yeah, and God, I can't stop thinking about it. Past episode with McPherson Chris Paulson actually teaches a class not just on automotive history but how to research the origins of your automobile, right, cool, yeah that was so neat Interesting to know.

Christian 21:03

And while we're on the history of cars here, while we're teeing up the next question, I was in an antique store. I really enjoy antiquing.

Christian 21:10

I was in an antique store and I saw this license plate or a rack of license plate. They're like 50 bucks a pop. I said what is it with these lines? Nobody wants these. What is it? Well, come to find out license plate collecting is is a is a big deal. It's the big thing. I don't know if it's the world over, but you're not just going to go go get up Now. I'm talking about kind of you know, old, very. But you're not just going to go get a now. I'm talking about kind of old, very interesting-looking license plates. But it's a thing. They have shows, they have swap meets.

Christian 21:39

They have all this sort of thing. Yeah, it's like record collecting or baseball card collecting or something like that. Anyway, just wanted to worthless bomb information, some A bit of trivia in there. Back to you, back to you with that breaking news. Yeah, yeah, thank you With that. Back to you, back to you with that breaking news. Yeah, yeah, thank you with that breaking worthless news, yeah, so um, the beetle.

Doug 21:56

The beetle became a big part, but you're and you still have it, and earlier you mentioned you're gonna pick it up from pennsylvania, drive it back, fingers crossed, uh, down south about 700 miles and turn it into a miles and turn it into a Baja. Yeah, the goal is to uh completely Baja. Rally it out and compete in the 1000.

Christian 22:22

Awesome yeah, very great, very great yeah, so oh go ahead.

Doug 22:27

Oh, no, no, Um. So I did want to ask about um, cause every Volkswagen tells the story. I've heard you have another Volkswagen, a red one. Can you tell us about it? And is that your daily driver, or is it?

Eva 22:42

a I do have. I have a 72 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and I actually. Karmann Ghia was the dream and it was. I couldn't afford it. So at the same show that I ended up buying the beetle from was the first time that I saw Carmen Ghia in person.

Eva 22:59

And this sounds so dramatic, but it literally brought a tear to my eye and I am a big journaler and I literally journaled like I'm going to find that Ghia. And while I didn't find the exact same one, I did find a red Gia a couple years later. So while I bought the bug that day, I held on to that dream of the Gia and the opportunity came up in 2023 now and I purchased it not far from where I live, and it was a great story of a father son who had bought it to work on and have a project together, and now it's become my project and it's been an amazing experience. It is not my daily I have an Audi A4. It's my daily, but the Karmann Ghia I do use most weekends and definitely drive it at least once a week.

Doug 23:47

Wow.

Eva 23:48

Yeah.

Christian 23:49

And yeah, if you want to see some, okay, so I would like to talk about Hagerty's here at some point, is it?

Eva 23:56

okay if we talk about your day job and kind of like your past, moving through the ranks and moving up quite quickly.

Christian 24:05

I think it's very interesting. So how did you get into that? When did you decide that you wanted to do that for a living, and to what do you attribute your rapid success?

Eva 24:18

This is so funny. So I started in the industry by complete accident. It was never the goal. I once thought I was going to be an attorney. I once thought I was going to teach English as a second language internationally, and I'm very far from either of those things. So when I was in college, as most people, I was financially independent. I was working two jobs and needed a third. So that's how I found Atlanta Motorsports Park. They were still under construction, it was still very much in its elementary stages, and in working there I literally began as a cashier.

Eva 24:51

That was my only previous work experience and I ended up getting cross-trained in every role between corner marshal, pit stewarding, mechanic role and then ended up creating a position that was really focused on marketing for their memberships, because there was a missing piece there. During my time at AMP I had people in my life that really really fully inundated me in it, people that became really good friends and still strong impact in my life now and they were very heavily involved in classic air-cooled German vehicles and then some newer. A 996 was one of my first memories with friends there and, yeah, just totally got exposed and inundated. And then, once those relationships began, you know, getting nurtured and developing, I got really involved in working on those vehicles and worked on some air-cooled Porsches, specifically a 79 911 SC that was built to mimic an East African safari rally race.

Eva 25:55

And it was just some really, really cool experiences and so many of my fond memories from college, which is when I worked at AMP, were on those mountain drives, late night drives through North Georgia up into North Carolina and just getting to experience what a visceral feeling of an air-cooled vehicle is. And so that's really that's how I said okay, this is where I want to stay. I just I fell in love with the hobby enthusiast side and then the people were just so important to my life and I just I was fascinated. Every, every car person has so many interesting stories. An opportunity came where I was able to move to Road Atlanta, now Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and grew in the ranks pretty quickly there as well. So I started there actually as a corner marshal and ended up growing and evolving into hospitality sales and finished as director of operations before joining Hagerty now.

Christian 26:55

Wow Well that is quite the story. That's a lot going on there so well.

Be Differential Podcast Origins

Christian 26:59

Again, congratulations for all the success and I wanted to chat a minute for okay. So you have two things. That really interested Doug and I from the get-go was your YouTube channel, which I think is so accessible and so well done. Kudos to you and your team, but also the podcast, and it's been really great talking to you because I feel like we're talking to kind of a fellow pro here. So how did the podcast come about and what is the most unexpected, pleasant thing that you've learned about the whole experience of producing one, being that you have one?

Eva 27:39

That's such a fun question. So the podcast really derived from attending the Women With Drive Summit in 2023. And this is an event that's hosted by Women in Motorsports North America and I was just blown away by the impact. It's no secret that this is a male dominated industry, right? And while so much change and improvement has occurred, there's still certainly a lot of work to be done, not just for women, but for underrepresented groups across the board.

Eva 28:06

And when I went to that summit, I was just really, really inspired by how many people I didn't know their stories and the fact that in motorsports, you most often see you know, drivers and professionals, team owners, people that are in the spotlight. So I really literally left the summit on my flight home, filled out 10 pages of a notebook of what my vision for this podcast was, what was missing, what I wanted the mission to be, what dream guests I had and what topics I wanted to cover. And then I just started texting some folks in my network and saying, hey, I'm kind of thinking about this. Does this sound ridiculous? And then, if not, would you be willing to join? And it really I, I. It's been just over a year now since I've started and launched the podcast. I launched it in March of 2024. Us too.

Eva 29:01

I love that Same on, and the most surprising positive thing has just been, no matter how deep I've been in this I'm in the industry for almost 10 years now there's so many untold stories and there's so many avenues and entry points that people are just not aware of at all, and so that's really. I'm still learning every day that I get to be a part of it and join in it, and it's been really really cool to create an opportunity that elevates other people.

Christian 29:28

I dig that. That's well stated. That's one of the things that I like so much about this show that Doug and I are growing is just the amazing people we never would have met otherwise. And they're not all in the car industry like yourself. They have a passion, but they have these other jobs police people, emtp, retired lawyers, up and down the spectrum. But everybody tells you know, everybody has these wonderful stories and truly just subtext is a way to get to know somebody. Okay, so did the YouTube channel—we found for us that that was a logical extension of the podcast to sort of get the word out. Is that what happened to you?

Eva 30:11

Yeah, I mean truly. I was really apprehensive to start the YouTube because I really wanted to put quality content out and I felt that my my audio is good quality, but I was less confident in my video and editing and so on. But yeah, absolutely, it was one of those things where I just wanted, no matter what your access point is or what your interest is some people don't enjoy listening to podcasts, some people want to watch it. So, yeah, it was just another platform to really broaden who it could reach and who might be interested.

Christian 30:43

Fantastic Good stuff. And before we ramp the show down, I'm going to toss the baton back to here. Look, here's a baton, I'm handing it. No, it's a screwdriver.

Doug 30:54

Sorry, looks like a screwdriver, let's go. Yeah, so you've had a lot of cars and there are a lot of great car stories. Um, hopefully, hopefully, the uh Volkswagen will end up on YouTube again on its on its journey down. South. But, um, what is your? What is your dream car, Ava, given all the cars that you've seen ridden in, learn about in your day-to-day life.

Eva 31:21

Yeah, the goal has always been a 356. And that has been the goal since the beginning and it's an affordability, it's getting there right. I'm on the journey, I'm in the family, but specifically a split window 356 is really just. That has stolen my heart. I the. I have memories in 356s and driving being a passenger and when I own that car I will know that I have made it I heard, uh, I heard seinfeld has one might be for sale you never know if you don't ask just start a sitcom you'll

Christian 31:57

make it, we have all the faith in the world, in you.

Doug 32:00

Great answer. Or just stick with YouTube. She's doing great.

Dream Cars and YouTube Adventures

Christian 32:07

Yeah, we have all the faith in the world. So, as we guide the podcast gently to the off ramp, here one question for you. One last question on the way out. Okay, so do Carmen Ghiaias come with steering wheels? Are they changeable and what do you know about that?

Eva 32:24

I love this. So timely, isn't it? Absolutely. They come with steering wheels and, depending on the era, some of them are more aesthetically pleasing than others. When I purchased my 72, the previous owner and his son had really tried to hot rod it out, so there were choices that I personally would not have made. So when I bought it I knew immediately I wanted to change it and despite mine being a 72, I actually bought an aftermarket. It's dated up to 71. Very easy to change out, very, very one bolt switches it super quick. But I feel like it just speaks to the character and makes it much more representation of who I am through that vehicle.

Christian 33:08

Absolutely. And just again, we have to give so much praise to your YouTube channel because that thing that you just described is the perfect little YouTube video. It's everything. Youtube should be quick, clever, fun, educational. Uh, you struggle with the horn, you gotta you have to, you have to rewire some sort of horn button and it's just, it's so engaging and fast and, um, I think it's great. So, hey, we appreciate you taking some time this afternoon to take us through your world a little bit. Ava, it was a distinct pleasure meeting you.

Eva 33:45

Likewise. Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it.

Christian 33:48

And I would say a prayer that you can make it from Pennsylvania to where you are right now, but you won't need it. All the faith in the world.

Eva 33:55

Yeah, I will say I'll give that personal plug. If you guys want to follow along, I'm sure the journey will be documented.

Christian 34:03

So Be Differential podcast Boom, mic drop. That's it Well, thank you again, ava. Thank you Distinct pleasure. And you have just heard the high revving, low mileage, late model heard around the world. Authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. He's Doug. Reach him at Doug at CarsLovecom. I'm Christian. Reach me at Christian at CarsLovecom. Please follow and tell a friend. If you like what you're hearing. Leave a review. That helps us grow. Try out CarsLovecom for a lot of fun, engaging content as well as what we call the carousel of memories. Send us a picture of your cars or our link tree, doug. Let's get into them at linktree slash carsloved.

Christian 34:46

That's it. I am sure we'll see you at the next local car show, show, race or race trip. We appreciate you taking a lap with us and we'll see you next time.