Engines, EVs and Espresso: Ep 20 - Role of Car Culture in Women's Identities

On this week's episode of Engines, EVs, and Espresso  - Abby and Molly lovingly feud over the return of the infamous Lavender Latte and debate which purple drink will become the official drink of E-Cubed.
They chat about Abby's recent visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA and discuss the principles behind why women love cars as much as the other gender(s) and why they've played a unique role in our modern-day identities. They finally dissect a few pieces of news surrounding the potential sale of McLaren F1 Racing, how recent popularity in F1 doesn't necessarily translate to steady returns, and what a potential sale can do for the company.

Find us on our socials @enginesevsandespresso on IG and @ecubedpod on X, and tell us what your favorite purple drink is and, as usual, Stay Curious and Stay Caffeinated!

Transcript

Unknown: 0:11

laughs so hard before we got started, it was almost like gets said, action go. Okay, I was like an MJR movie Clapper, which I don't think anybody outside of the Midwest will ever know. There's a movie chain here. And they have a theme song and like you clap three times with it. So like, I'm a music kid and what bad kid like, I do that I planted that theater at the jingle. So I was like, Let's go like I just, I'm animated. It's a lot of things tied into your theater kid comes out, and also many ways, online when I least want to, like it also helps blend your creative and engineering pursuits into like, The Tick Tock thing. It's yeah, the the goofy side. And because I use the accent, I used to be a theater kid, and I haven't done theater since I was like 14. And I used to be always I think I lost a lot of my stage confidence. As older I got, I used to be like the front and center when I was a kid. And then I started taking the side roles. Lots to unpack there on why I lost it. So I haven't done theater in a while. And I still get really conscious in front of a camera, but I see camera come so naturally to you. So I see that. And people really talk about it, get on a tiktoks Don't start recording. It's really hard for most people. It's so hard. I like it comes naturally to me. I'm glad that that comes across because it was so hard for me to watch back. And like be comfortable to like, put your face out there too. Because it's like, what I do it, it's my brand and it's my brand is me. And it's the same thing with the types you do. It's like it's it's me. So it's it's hard. And it's scary. It's very scary. And it's the theater kid to f1 pipeline, like we talked about on our previous episode, like almost like, this is episode 20 By the way, why episode 20 But we are officially in the one person of podcasts that make it it's like there's a statistic that like they don't make it far there's only like 1% of shows that make it farther than episode 20. And we are officially in that 1% Which which tells me we should do a proper welcome. Welcome to this week's episode of engines EVs and espresso, the podcast about caffeine machine and all things in between Ali's not here this week. No, that's a milestone episode. Ali's not here but an Ally's not here. She's on her way to Monza right now. She'll get there at some point. And she's living her racing dreams like she does every summer so she's forgiven us like we forgave Molly last week for going on Dream Cruise. We forgive anything you do regarding cars is forgiven. And this podcast and coffee we're gonna Yeah, the crime you committed against a latte today, which is going to be what was returned of the lavender latte. So for people who have not listened to previous episodes, lavender latte is something that I had never tried. Until ally, our lovely producer had tried it. And Molly told us that she hated it. And I had not tried to Lavender lawtendo Then I'd had in lavender marches. Coffee, probably not. And I will agree it's a weird taste. The first time you haven't. I went to Verve Coffee Roasters that we talked about there probably roaster that we talked about last episode. I'm in LA right now and they have a shop very close to where I'm staying at my sister's place. So I had to go go to Verve because I just wanted to try their coffee. Of course, lo and behold, there was a honey lavender latte. And you know, you would have liked this one because there was a Karmali burnt taste to it. Then and the lavender was really light. So you You would have actually liked this wine. But you know, I'm skeptical. I have such a vehemence for ingesting my lavender. Like it just it tastes like a body front and back end I can can't do it by the body works for you again. And like I'm sure they would have been able to tell me but I can't have honey unless it's pasteurized. So that's also a recipe for disaster potentially because of my B allergies. So not only do I not want to drink a body product but I do not want to have to use an epi pen for that doesn't make sense but also lavender like you go to this coffee shop that you've been hyping and talking about and all excited and you can lavender so also yesterday my sister mom and I went to a Ross because of course we wanted like flip flops where we were in LA because we didn't pack any and of course we wanted to go to CVS or Whole Foods my mom didn't like any of course lo and behold, we saw Ross far my mom just gets very excited when she sees a Ross so of course like TJ Maxx home goods. For anybody who doesn't know what Ross is. Ross is like a TJ Maxx so like Marshalls like TK Maxx if you're in the UK, one of those kinds of stores, all they had on their shelves was a toasted coconut Mocha, Molly. Why is this 48 hours of coffee held for me? And it's your life that's experiencing it versus saving you from the coffee hell and just like showing I don't like instead so that I keep remembering you. So I saw it and I'm like, should I take a photo? I was like, No, I'll just tell it to her. But it was like, oh look, Molly's here in thoughts. So I'll go there. I'll try their Nitro Cold Brew tomorrow from Verve Coffee Roasters or somewhere else because you'll have to let me know what you think of their nitro I struggle with nitro from a lot of places because I think you can taste that it's been in like a keg sometimes, so I had one in Indy that I could taste it and I wasn't a fan of so you'll have to let me know walling you know, but the return of the lavender latte was and it was a little bit too watery for my liking though the negative thing I'll say about this light a latte. And when it got watery, it just felt like weirdly tasting water and I'm like, why Molly hates it, doesn't she? And so all your point there but hat Kaiga Hey, there's the lavender latte is here to stay it will become our signature drink because purple is our also our signature color. Okay, our brand colors so well then it will become the drains that will take to paddocks and give people and people may not like it. And then Molly will eventually be the one that ends up loving it and we start heating and we drink knowledge. If we're going to talk purple drinks Sabbath has an eBay latte called like, ooh, Bay Bay Bay. And I haven't tried it yet. But I've heard it's delicious. I didn't get a chance to when I was there the other morning I wanted my usual so I wasn't about to like fuss around with random experimental latte Am I late to work? But it's purple and beautiful. And I'm going to try it hopefully this week. I did have an eBay ice cream cone yesterday. I love eBay the color was purple. That that'll be the other. That'll be the non lavender purple dress. Yeah, tell us and our socials are in the comments or wherever you can find us what your favorite purple drink is. Maybe it's not coffee. Are there any more purple rings? I don't know. Just let us know. Yes, there's purple Diego. I had a purple. I had a grape celcius today. There's purple monsters. There's grape juice. There's the Trader Joe's purple drink. That's like taking the claim girlies by store. Um, so yeah, there's plenty there's purple Kool Aid. ls your favorite purple? There's purple Doritos. Her purple co Bucha. So yeah, what's your favorite battle drink? Your purple drink even though lavender latte is not purple. It's just flavored. Well, yeah, tell us your purple drink. I'm hearing racecars. Apparently that was I was like I'm not going crazy. I promise like this. I'm not hearing f1 cars while we were having on your trouble Ah, I was trying to read on the history of the 125 s that I saw at the Petersen auto museum. And it was a I was reading over the Alfa Romeo Colombo v 12. And then you were like coming back and like I hear returns and like is this is the ghost of Enzo Ferrari. Even folks, that ghost of Enzo Ferrari three times spec? Oh my god, I think that's what we carry is what I was hearing. It was like a race that Michael Schumacher was racing it and I was like I started talking about Enzo Ferrari. And that was the moment. You're scary. It started with saying you started hearing Michael Schumacher. What? Yeah, Ferraris? We like you. We like launches didn't crap and didn't crap talk them that bad on my tech podcast today. Like I thought they had a good power unit, although unreliable. See, but what I'm trying to say is that we're talking about the first ever 1940s Ferrari bills and Enzo Ferrari just came out. He just decided to appear on our podcast. Sorry, hands up. We talked about you getting pissed by Henry Ford. The second we're not going to piss you off ever again. No, sorry. That's so for people who were going to try this again. I was at the Petersen auto museum earlier in the day and we were talking about the different cars 2015 LaFerrari. Ooh, you before have you I have not seen a LaFerrari before a was gorgeous. And it it also has a hybrid car system that comes from one cars. Yeah, and it was the first Ferrari since the 1973. Dino GT four which is Enzo son Dino made it dead did not have Pininfarina as input on it. I did not know how much Italian like designer Pininfarina had impacted Ferrari style. So that was one of the biggest thing that I learned like you probably saw for people who are newer race fans and light have heard the word Pininfarina before there was a car there was a electric car that Formula E in Hyderabad this year brought on which was a printing Farina forgetting what the model was, which is a complete Evie. So the design legacy of Pininfarina still lives on. I also saw a lot of gear designs, and I saw the original Ferrari Gaea. And you can see the badges. The Ferrari Pininfarina as the Ferrari guias. They actually come with the GIMP badge or the Pininfarina badge with it. So you can see how these like designers have actually impacted different cars. And so that was really interesting to see at the Petersen auto Museum. There was a 2009 first McLaren hybrid, which was driven by Lewis Hamilton, the couple of mica Hawkins cars, I'm pretty sure it's number 14 Fernando's number I'm forgetting. Yeah, yeah. So I saw one of his cameo on McLarens as well. I did see a Johnson Burton McLaren as well. And so there were a lot of these cars. But the interesting part was they were selling. Lando, Charles, and Carlos 116, prototype diecast models at the store, which was so interesting. I was like, if you're not showing their cars, why are you selling them? Which tells me it's wildly popular with people. Yeah, so and people say that Lando is really popular in America, that kind of shows or Charles. These are these three drivers of the most commercially viable drivers right now, which is interesting, which is very interesting. I saw a Daniel Arsham exhibit with all different Porsches and there was a Ferrari there was a shell gastic gas pump design. And for people who don't know Daniel Arsham Yes, we love Do you know Arsham here? Yes, we love doing a large ship. I've seen his work, I think a couple of years in a row at South by Southwest definitely this year. I also saw some of his work last year. Daniel Arsham, is an artist born in 1980. Ah, he is an interdisciplinary artist and his love of cars is a big part that plays into his art pieces. And he uses different kinds of materials, he will mold. He's also a sculptor. So like the Tiffany's in New York, the New Tony's in New York has his big blue bronze, Dino ashram sculpture in the middle of it around the stairs. But he makes these beautiful art pieces out of like, oh, nine elevens mostly, it was all eroded pieces with crystals in the middle. And I think it was supposed to be a look into the future when cars are not part of society, and they just become pieces of art. So they're eroded piece. Oh, I got to see the Pikes Peak pink wenigen car? Yes. Yeah. May Ken black rest in peace. I think it was his Lea black drove it this year up. So that's his daughter Riley as his daughter. Yeah. So that was but it was beautiful cards right by the entrance bunch of inside Lemond cars. And something at the start of the exhibit on the third floor that talks about is like cars are love. And people love it. For engineering, innovation, freedom, utility and distinction. These are the five pillars that they've kind of designed this whole exhibit around, right? Their history exhibit. And I thought about this very deeply on why women love cars. And people ask this and somebody at work years ago asked me this, oh, why do women like Formula One? And I've been asked this at various stages of men. And I think something that like jogged and that exhibits idea for me was, I've always said there aesthetic card lovers, which is why museums and of course there's the innovation factor for it as well. But the aesthetic piece and the utility V's a lot of people love it for the utility of it, what it does for them, especially in southern California, where there is a big car culture is a big part of it. There's this ostentatious car driver, but also cars like it's 200 square mile radius this entire city. So you need cars to get somewhere. Yeah, there's of course, this aesthetic space in the utility piece. For women. I also want to add this factor that like jogged my head is freedom. My mom doesn't drive. And I think there's a sense of freedom in when you learn to drive your own car. Yeah, men or women. And since it's happened for women much later than it's happened for men, I think there's the sense of freedom is so huge that women associated with cars. And we don't talk about that enough. It's always about oh, women love the personalities, the emotion or fact of it, but never about what it does for them. Yeah. And so for me, I think that freedom definition is definitely going in it. I think innovation, aesthetics, and utility applies to everybody. And of course, the freedom part. But freedom is so big for me. Because I remember, like, after my first breakup, I was 24 years old, I got into the car was Memorial Day weekend and drove 12 hours from Indianapolis to New Orleans on a solo trip. And that signified ultimate freedom for me. Oh, yeah. And so I think we don't talk about that enough on why I think cars signify freedom for women. And that's just one part of the equation or many things. Yeah, women like ours. And I don't know what your experience or thoughts are about that. I think you put it like, really well, I agree with what you're saying that it's like, it is almost a sign of freedom to be able to do that and to be able to drive yourself places. And I feel like you saw even car marketing shift to that too, back when women were allowed to drive and were able to get their license here in the United States. But do you know still in the US 80 to 85% of car buying decisions are made by women? Yes. And like so. I don't know why cars are not targeted for women as much. Yeah, I mean back in, like the 60s and 70s. They were with like the mirror and the lighting and like, that's why the mirror is so good. And the little flip down thing like they were trying to market towards women because that's not only like that statistic has still stayed stable since then. But it's continued like that. And then when women were allowed to drive they obviously wanted women to feel like a Um, these cars had something for them and and so they put the it's very sexist but the mirror with the good lighting and all of that is like a thing I always remember from like, act about karma, we like to go fast. And also we like good mirrors like I don't know why a car can't have it all. That's like you catch me in a well lit parking lot with a pair of tweezers in that visor mirror, mind your business. Exactly. It's better. Sometimes it's better in your home mirror. Yes, a car can go fast. And it can also serve purposes to tweeze your eyebrows. We all need it. Function, utility and freedom of all. There we go. We've cracked the code. we've cracked the code aesthetics utility, like it gives you everything right. It really is saying, I think this whole conversation about women not liking cars is it's still so it feels like from 100 years ago, but I still keep bringing it back because I think we need to dispel the myth or little by little and keep going. I also saw one of the there was a collector's portion and Renee Rinker off. I didn't know who she was before this, but she's one of a legendary 356 Porsche collector, and she's outfitted to drive all around the world and raise money for child trafficking. And like women trafficking causes. And she's like, race the car in all conditions around the world. She's done like 350 643 46 rallies in that car, and raised over a million dollars for women and children alike for causes. And she's one of the legendary collectors that was in their sections. And I don't know why we don't talk about them as much. I don't either. So speaking of McLaren's that you saw today, and Jensen and landowners and and Lewis Hamilton's I think this is a good segue into what we were thinking about for our racing topic this week, which actually involves the papaya squad. There has been different pieces of news, let's talk about this. This is not about one piece of news that we read somewhere, right? This is about different pieces of news. We're not buying or selling anything either pun intended. Exactly, we're not. There is a piece of article that came out in the business f1 magazine. That led to another couple of articles that picked it up, that McLaren may be looking to sell their majority share, which is 70%, which is going to be close to 900 million to a billion dollars. And we've heard these rumors for a really long time. It's coming back again. And for people who didn't know this, by the way, 2021 from all we know 2021 to early 2022. saw at least these are insider information. That and I think it's old news at this point, so I can talk about it is there were multiple Audi deals on the McLaren table. That's what we've heard before. And the reason I think and I think it was close to 500 to 700 million was the range. I think that deal was valued at. We don't actually know why the dealer negotiations broke down. But I'd heard it had something to do with control issues. Which party wanted to have more control with buying, like, let's say 70% of this, if Audi had taken over if would they have installed a new CEO. So there was some control issues that led down to the deal dropping out every time right. But I'm sure it's not a Zacks decision, right. There's a board's nobody really knows what happened in that room. So we're not going to speculate. But there's another piece of common that came out with Zac Brown today where he said that their biggest roadblock this year to developing the car was that they had 20 year old simulators and a really old wind, Tala, they were working with. It's very interesting to see that they had not upgraded that since before Roz bronze era when they sell simulators. And they haven't had money to invest in their own simulators. And there was when I was trying to correlate this 2020 to recorded 125 127 million in profit after the SEC came on board. And Zach's been it what isn't hasn't even been there since 17 or 18? Yes. So it took them that long five years to register a profit and What's telling me that then they had to sell their building and rent it like they did. They done the Saudis own their building. They rent MTC from the Saudis that they sold it to. And that happened 2022. Maybe that's what that acid change brought into profit. Maybe. But you know how people think just because Lando is popular, Daniel used to be popular people totally. Not for McLaren, though. But people used to correlate that popularity into profitability, like they're not doing so well. They were doing so well. The point of this entire conversation is that popularity is not profitability. And like, Zack came on because he was a marketing guy. And he has almost sold every bit of inch you can find on the card to a sponsor. And even I'm waiting for him to start selling like drivers body parts, honestly. But I think they already do that don't pay for like the race suit, like, oh, that's fair, that that is true. Unless you're saying like, Lando is gonna get like now tattoos like someone's gonna show up with like something across their forehead or Lando is gonna get a tramp stamp like it'd be fine. Google trans stamp would be the first of its kind. I'm sure some that Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, it'll be like Jack Daniels or something big or views. I don't think Jack Daniels or views as making as a tramp stamp. It's a Google one. I think it would have to be a significant amount of money. Yeah, to sell that. And I think like Ali is missing such an ally would have been like, get back on track both of you. I mean, can I jump in there real quick because it's with their wind tunnel and Sue thing. Just to note for our listeners, McClaren just commissioned a new wind tunnel it's up to be running. It was done over the summer. So they should be in a new wind tunnel because that was part of the comment section. They they should be in a new window here pretty soon. They were using Toyotas old wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany for a long time. And that is a very old wind tunnel way like Toyota was aged. That's like a war time window, isn't it? That's elf. I mean, this is a terrible example. But alphatauri is in a wartime wind tunnel. A lot of them were using wartime like wind tunnel. But ya know, alphatauri still in a wartime wind tunnel as well. Um, but yeah, sorry, random tangent. It's it's super interesting to see, especially with all of these like sponsors coming in, Zach brings in, you're like, holy crap. I never thought that sponsor would ever even look at motorsports or f1 and Sachs reeling them in, which is super interesting, but it's not really translating anywhere. It seems like it's translating either there's high costs, they're spending the money on, they only have 150 million, and they've got other bills to pay. It looks like they've got bills to pay. Yeah, outside does the spending on the car. And the interesting part is everybody's like, Oh, so much sponsorship, but we have to also understand some of them are partnerships. This is the one that's eat me out for a while is a Goldman Sachs Partnership, which is their sustainability. It means nothing, by the way, it really means Goldman Sachs is helping them understand what their sustainability portfolio investing portfolio should look like. And they're probably managing the sale at some point, also. And it's a reduction in fees probably that they get in return to that sticker. That's what it really I don't think Goldman Sachs is actually paying them any real money. There's no way I don't think so truthfully, no, I don't think that's happening. So I think we need to understand. And I've heard both sides of information that the Google of course, I know that for a fact that the Google sponsorship before it went live, it was two years in the making. And I've heard stories from both ends, that McLaren went to the new Google office to court it or Google came back and pays insane amounts of money for this sponsorship. Right. I don't know why Google would do that. Because Google has a brand value bigger than McLaren. I'm so sorry about that. No. So I don't understand that part of the equation. But again, it McLaren would benefit more from a Google Chrome rang than Google really word being in McLaren. So I think it could be something do with Google's cloud services. Google's small business kind of, does. They do some stuff for them? Exactly. Right. So it has to be all of that. But again, What I'm trying to tell you is that they've also had a slew of weird sponsors like remember Husky chocolate, who still sponsors Marcus Eriksen. Yes. In IndyCar, they only sell chocolate in Sweden, I don't know how much money a chocolate company is making, they tried to come up with like a carry on cocktail too. And I've heard I've heard an interesting. I've also there, of course, a sports athlete, let's say a Swedish friend. But I like for them to be doing stuff in a global sport like Formula One and trying to make it global when their supply chain is not set up to go global. Makes no sense. So they've also had a lot of, they've had weird crypto sponsors. So they've also had a lot of transient sponsors. So none of this is I think, translating into stability, stability. And if you see, Mercedes, their partners are a lot more stable. You see, the one brand CrowdStrike has been there forever. They go into partnerships with people that are much long standing. So whereas Zack is almost an experimental in that place, a lot of brands seeing the long standing approach. So it's very interesting to see how it all kind of like turns out, and if McLaren is actually going to sell it to a new owner, it's not going to be privately owned anymore. But it's going to be very interesting, because at the end of the day, I think it's good. And if it brings them a cash infusion of a billion dollars, while only going to like maybe the Saudi government. Let's say Saudi government ends up buying the rest of it the hope fully, like what's the problem? It's fine. Yeah, it's still gonna be making the same cars. I don't think the government is going to be sitting in making the decisions. It's only going to be reaping the profits at the end of the day, rather than going into the executive pockets. I think the executives are still going to make money. I think they could use the cash infusion. And I think that could help all Yeah, I think it's a good move if it finally ends up happening. Well, I think that's all we have. Without ally work completely, sometimes lost. Were herding cats on a mouse farm without at least sometimes. Ellie come back, please. That's all we have. Yeah, the duck GP will already have been done by this time. Are we talking about some kind of oranges anyways, that's why we wanted to keep this orange. I want to know when McLaren McLaren I want to know what Mercedes was doing with that orange paint can and we'll see you as usual at some other time sometime soon. Yeah, that's the way we're doing this podcast. No, thank you for listening to this week's episode of engine seavees and espresso. Don't forget to like Rate, Subscribe and follow us over on Twitter at e cubed pod over on Instagram at engines EVs and espresso and give us a like and rate on whatever your favorite listening platform is. Stay caffeinated that's your line that's fine bye bye. You were saying something I don't know where I was going with it train left the station without me on it. So