A popular club and brand that celebrates vintage, customized vans from the 1970s and '80s, helping to keep retro van culture alive through events and merchandise.
The Ford Escape is a small SUV made by Ford. It is designed to be a practical, everyday family car that is easy to drive, easy to park, and has a decent amount of trunk space. It sits slightly higher off the ground than a standard sedan, giving the driver a better view of the road.
The Dodge Neon is a small, inexpensive sedan that was very common on American roads in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was built to be a simple, fuel-efficient, and affordable car for commuters and first-time buyers.
A style of modifying vans to look like rolling living rooms, complete with wild paint jobs on the outside and cozy setups like beds and shag carpet on the inside.
A science-meets-cars TV show where hosts test out famous myths about cars—like whether a playing card in the spokes actually does anything or if movie car jumps are realistic.
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Rose EP52 1: Today, we look at the story of two women who thought they could make a podcast that would touch the hearts of others. The struggles they've gone through, investing much of their own time trying to find an audience. In a world crowded with voices, a stage where they must find a part to play.
Rose EP52 1: Emily believed there was a reason for her and the women of Portland to carve out some space in their local car scene. She and a group of like-minded women believed they deserved a sense of community, so they set forth to build it. Within a year, they were scheming up their own gathering, a block party, car show, art show with classes, airbrushing, and total party vibes.
Speaker 11: Car Crush Block Party is coming up. It's Saturday, August 17th. It's at 7700 Southeast Stark in Portland, Oregon. It's a huge fucking lot, so, uh, ladies, bring all your cars. Yes. '89 and older.
So it was women forward, queer forward, and not that men weren't invited, ' cause we had a lot of our awesome guy friends that are car dudes show up with their super sweet whips, and they just parked outside of the realm of the actual show. And they came in and supported
Rose Gina EP52 1: And you're in Rolling Death fan
Gina EP52 1: I was interviewed on Car Crush about, well, about my van, but also about all my dream cars and, uh, yeah, we recorded in Emily's, apartment in the kitchen. It was quite fun, me and Emily and, Mandy
JD ADR EP52: Yeah, uh, no trophies. I was very excited about coming to the Car Crush event. , I had made a lot of Instagram friends and, uh, was finally gonna meet everybody. Uh, took the car down there. I was coming from Sandy and had a feeling I shouldn't take 82nd. 82nd was very backed up. Looked away for a moment, split fucking second, and rear-ended somebody.
Emily EP52 1: We had a conflict deciding what representation looked like. We got some coverage at a local news outlet, and one of the people that we had lined up to be in the photo shoot couldn't make it, They wanted to be replaced with somebody just like them, but somebody that we didn't know that wasn't a part of the crew. And to us, that just felt forced. It felt kinda token, and that caused a bit of a falling out
We had big dreams of selling products to support our classes and the block party and the podcast. And then we wanted to fix up our friends' cars, document it, and then create products around the cars
Speaker 23: That was such a rad time in my life, for sure. Like working in that artist loft and, working with so many amazing, unique women , like between Rosie the intern and Faye the instructor, like it was just this really cool group with really unique personalities and interests and, um...
And Mandy and I did a bunch of interviews with just the coolest killer women that we could find. We created this huge backlog of women for just, like, automotive enthusiasts to professionals it was a snapshot in a moment of history of these women's lives and what it meant for them to be in the automotive industry
Speaker 15: This is a Q&A section.
Emily EP52 1: After I took a year off, I was refreshed, I was hyped, I wanted to do more
Speaker: Just do it. Flip it on its head and put all of the last conversation first, and then it ends with you meeting me.
Speaker 25: After I got off the phone with that interview with Rose, I hung up and just thought, "Hey, I don't wanna go to Arizona anymore." I was working with a group of women in Arizona. I'd gone out a couple times to help them with some builds, and it was super fun, and they're really great, and they have a really good thing going.
Gina EP52 1: I love Rose and Emily's engine class. Um, first of all, it was incredibly organized in terms of the space making sense and the way that it was set up for multiple groups to be working at a time. I'm a really visual learner, but also I like to read, so there were some helpful handouts. , No question was stupid, and, it was also...
Rose ADR EP52: arts Tool Library founder Patrick not only is the landlord of the Pile Up, but also took the engine class hosted by Emily and Rose
JD ADR EP52: The engine class was, uh, super fun to take. Took it with my friends and, felt very, like, empowering in a way because I really... even though I'd worked on cars in small amounts, never a motor. Like, working on a, a whole engine and taking it apart and putting it back together just seemed like something that you just can't do on your own or with, like, one other person.
Emily EP52 1: I wasn't really sure what I was doing. Uh, I sure as hell wasn't paying the rent. we had just had a really good engine class. It was probably the hardest I've ever worked for $300 in my life. But it was, it was... There was something else there. There was not only community there, but there was a chance to do more. And I was headed home with the bills stacking up, and when I got there- Things were obviously going to change
It wasn't long after Rose got up here that we started recording. She'd been giving me a lot of awesome creative advice, and I was taking a break from doing the interviews and just kind of a little break in general. We'd been listening to a British factual comedy podcast called No Such Thing As a Fish, and we were kind of wondering if we could do something along that same vein. Like, you know, like super informational and also funny
so I thought maybe we could do some kind of a Pile
It's a big time community effort there, and that is what we were trying to build. So maybe we were gonna be in there. Maybe we'd have somewhere to go, get out of the kitchen, escape the refrigerator
And they were like, "Are you kidding me? People spend thousands to get somewhere to look like this." So we had a neon van sign that, uh, actually the whiz kid from Motor MythBusters, Davis DeWitt, uh, I say kid respectfully, had made for me. And so we had the homage to custom banner, and then we left the Lyndon B.
Rose EP52 1: As the episodes pile up, the girls realize something is happening that they hadn't expected. They're building an audience. That desire for community actually producing a result.
Rose EP52 1: about 20 episodes in and gaining some momentum, the girls decided to add a short trivia show titled The Brain Buster to be released Fridays.
Rose ADR EP52-1: the brain buster enjoys participation from the listeners, including listeners such as JD
With the future looming over The Pile Up on the verge of season two, just 52 episodes later, the girls have found out recently that they've been renewed for another season
Emily EP52 1: We've got generous donations from our day jobs, and you know, the likes don't pay the bills, but we do it for the smiles. Season two, here we come
About this episode
Emily and Rose look back on the journey of building Car Krush, a women- and queer-forward automotive community in Portland. From organizing a block party for vintage cars to navigating the struggles of media representation, they share how their mission evolved. Listeners share stories of taking the duo's empowering, hands-on engine-building classes and finding a welcoming space in a traditionally male-dominated scene. The hosts also detail the origins of their podcast studio, "The Pile Up," and celebrate reaching their 52nd episode as they gear up for season two.
