WOMEN WHO WRENCH: Bogi Lateiner’s Arizona-based Girl Gang Garage
January 11, 2020
Posted by Barrett-Jackson
By Barbara Toombs
One of the hosts of MotorTrend’s “All Girls Garage,” Bogi Lateiner founded Girl Gang Garage in central Phoenix in 2018.
The statistics are staggering. Despite the fact women buy 68 percent of new cars in the U.S., just two-thirds of them know how to change a flat tire, and women represent only 9.6 percent of automotive repair and maintenance employees.
Bogi Lateiner has a mission to change all that.
Now in her seventh year as a host of MotorTrend’s “All Girls Garage,” a popular how-to automotive show, Bogi is a recognized leader in the automotive industry and a fierce advocate for women in the trades. But her path to this passion-fueled career almost did not happen. Born in Queens, New York, she grew up in North Jersey and then lived in Brooklyn. “I knew nothing about cars,” she said. “My family wasn’t into cars. It wasn’t something I grew up around.”
But she loved Volkswagen Bugs, and when she eventually bought one, she felt like she had a huge target on her head every time she took in to be fixed. It prompted her to take auto shop in high school. “Not because I thought this was going to be a career path,” Bogi recalled, “but because I didn’t want to feel vulnerable.”
That started the ball rolling. “It was empowering,” she said. “It really enabled me to take on other challenges in my life in a different way.” Bogi was all-in. She enrolled in Universal Technical Institute and moved to Arizona, later moving on to BMW factory training and working as a dealer technician for seven years. But she had a vision for an auto repair shop that was welcoming to women and offered career opportunities to female technicians beginning their career in the industry.
That passion for empowering women led Bogi to start her first shop, 180 Degrees Automotive, in her driveway in 2006, and she has been teaching women’s car care and basics classes since that time. “I thought if I got so much out of this, I wanted to share that empowerment with other women and help them be less afraid of this big piece of metal and plastic that they drive around every day,” she said.
In 2017, Bogi took a big leap and embarked on her first all-female restoration build. Known as the “Chevy Montage,” the 1957 Chevy pickup was unveiled at the 2017 SEMA Show after coming to life over a 10-month period with the help of 90 women from 23 states.
The following year, Bogi founded Girl Gang Garage in central Phoenix, providing a permanent space for projects like this to come to life. Offering monthly car care clinics and a variety of workshops, it also facilitated a second all-female build: “High Yellow 56” – a custom 1956 Chevy 3100 pickup unveiled at the 2019 SEMA Show. Next up: a ’61 Volvo PV544, which will have its grand unveiling at the BASF booth during the 2020 SEMA Show.
“The purpose of these builds is really two-fold,” said Bogi. “One is to get women in the industry together and give opportunities for women to explore the trade, but also we create conversation around women in the trade.” The all-female builds get taken to shows around the country after their debut, getting them out in the public to initiate those important conversations.
Women of pretty much any age (there have been girls as young as 8 involved, with a parent on hand) and any ability are welcome to take part in the builds. “We’ve literally had women here who don’t know what a ratchet is, all the way up to women with 20 years of experience – and everything in between,” said Bogi.
Has Bogi’s mission had an impact? “Change is slow,” she admits. “It’s never as fast as we want it to be. But I do think change is happening. I’m cautiously optimistic, and I see a lot of positive growth. More and more shop owners and men in the industry are open to and incredibly supportive of women in the trade.”
For information on car care clinics, workshops and to sign up for the next all-female build, visit GirlGangGarage.com.
Bogi will be moderating one of the two special “Women in the Automotive Industry” Behind The Hobby Collector Car Symposiums on Thursday, January 16, from 9 to 11 a.m. during the 2020 Scottsdale Auction. The symposiums are free of charge to all event ticket holders. For the entire schedule of events, click HERE.