Changing Lanes: A girl's passion for cars leads her to take charge of male dominated companies

25 Year-Old Karlee Bradley posing in front of a Cadillac Sports Coupe on Monday, October 23rd 2023, at Detail Garage Detroit. She is posing for a portrait in front of a freshly detailed car.

A narrative we have become familiar with is someone leaving the place they came from in search of a greater opportunity for themselves. Someone who is a good example of that is none other than a girl with a striking passion for building custom cars and detailing. 25-year old Karlee Bradley, a former cheerleader and cosmetology school student, decided her hometown of Jackson, Michigan wasn’t where she could grow to her full potential of success. “I just did not fit in with most girls. I had dreamt of building my Subaru and building high-performance cars. The people around me weren’t the most supportive of my goals. Mostly because they have not seen a woman work on cars because she loved it, not for the male attention. My hometown was not the place to do it”.

Karlee getting hands-on with her 2005 Subaru WRX project on Friday, October 20th 2023 at the repair shop she co-owns, Chasing Performance in Waterford Michigan. This car has been getting stripped to a bare shell and she is installing some suspension components.

The City of Jackson is home to 31,309 people in the 20th century it was known for having an automotive manufacturing center. That felt limiting towards Karlee where either getting underpaid ,working in a factory, or formerly working in the city’s local auto parts store for minimum wage were not how she envisioned her career of growing out of low income. However, it is important to note that women make up a quarter of the auto industry. She says, “There was not much to build off of both professionally and personally. For most things my family and I would travel out of town for those things”.

Deciding to leave the rural area, Karlee found both a new home and work in the City of Troy. This area had double the population of her hometown and prestigious automotive clientele. She became the customer service manager and mechanic at F8 Sports Cars, an automotive service shop specializing in high-end exotic and bespoke vehicles, where she harnessed her skills with caring properly for priceless cars, learning how to install performance modifications, and made good connections that were not previously available to her with repeating customers. “Nothing like this ever existed back in Jackson” Karlee said. “I never would have imagined that I was capable of doing those things when I was in Highschool or enrolled in Cosmetology School. But that was the beginning of building my future and confidence”.

Karlee brings her Subaru Impreza to work for a wash after her shift on Saturday, October 21st 2023 at Detail Garage Detroit. She is testing out some new-release products on her own car to provide her own insight when customers inquire about them.

Unfortunately, Karlee noticed that all the glitters wasn’t golden and ultimately made the choice of leaving F8 Sports Cars. “The work environment got draining and toxic” She claimed. “I felt as if I had more of the owner’s responsibilities than the real owner and I was stereotyped on more than one occasion. My clients saw my worth and treated me with respect, and while I was grateful for all I experienced during my time, I wanted something bigger and better”. Another opportunity was lined up for her with Chemical Guys, a high-end car care line available at popular department stores, at one of the franchise locations in the Metro-Detroit area with a large following.

Karlee and her new Toyota 4Runner posing for a sunset photo and an exotic BMW SUV had its exterior cleaned up by her on Sunday October 22nd, 2023 in Waterford Michigan. After a long day at work (and working tirelessly on getting her 4Runner on the road for its first drive), Karlee poses for the camera to announce her new car to her social media followers.

In her current adventure at the franchise store, Detail Garage, Karlee filled the role of store manager where she gave clients a personalized shopping experience for clients and their cars. She walked them through the proper care process for their interiors and exteriors, helped host community events to engage with more customers, do product demonstrations and details on customer vehicles, involved in social media posts and more. It became an abundance of all the things she has done before but all in one location. It also became a very steady source of income with both a 40-hour work week and side jobs to where she bought more cars to build and started creating social media content with. When she is off the clock, she goes back to wrenching on her own rides. “This job made me much more social and running the events allowed for more connections than F8” Karlee said. “I’ve gotten more involved with more Michigan car groups and cultures and educating people has been fulfilling”.

Karlee shows her passion for shine by giving a client’s Shelby Mustang a Ceramic Coating to protect its paint at Detail Garage Detroit on Saturday, October 21st, 2023. She regularly does this tedious work to preserve the paint on priceless client vehicles.

Karlee’s story is not only inspiring to females who want to get into the car scene and may not be in the proper economic-space or have the means right away, but it shows regardless of where a person comes from that motivation is a powerful tool to achieve success and turn things that were once dreams a fulfilling daily lifestyle.

Karlee gives her classic Pontiac a much needed bath at her garage while recording some content for her social media channels on Friday, October 20th, 2023. This Trans-Am formerly belonged to her grandfather so she has recently been starting the build process with it.