Motoring
Meet The 'Queen of Cars' Becky Evans
If the merest mention of the auto industry makes your eyelids feel heavy, then Queen B is here to prove there’s more to motors than torque and lug nuts… and leave the old guard eating her dust.
For some, the term ‘car culture’ conjures mental images of middle-aged men in beige corduroy trousers, the ability to nerdishly reel off facts about suspension, and – regrettably – the word ‘epic’. Meet Becky Evans, the 26-year-old driver shaking up that once-inaccessible automotive scene, riding low in her cherry-hued, customised 1983 BMW E21, which she has named ‘Red’.
To her 39,000-plus subscribers on YouTube and her 58,000-strong Instagram following, Evans is better known as Queen B, and her pages teem with car expertise delivered with an appealing aesthetic that’s more fashion vlogger&than Top Gear presenter. As such, she offers a fresh alternative to the staleness of the present-day car industry.
Becky has always felt cars represented freedom
© Patrik Lundin
In the flesh, parked in a questionable neighbourhood of east London, Evans lives up to her online persona. Dressed in camo combat trousers, Old Skool Vans and an understated limited-edition Helmut Lang T-shirt, she’s relaxed and open, infecting everyone in the immediate vicinity with her enthusiasm – both for her beloved Red, which she leans against as she talks, and for the world of motoring in general.
Petrol has run through Evans’ veins her whole life. The daughter of two car-fanatic parents, she was a go-karter, then a drag racer, from the ages of eight to 18. But she rarely saw her own interests reflected in the mainstream motoring media. “I looked online and the content that was being put out there just was not relatable for me,” she says. “I was like, ‘That’s not how my car world works. That’s not the vibe at all.’”
Cars have always represented a kind of freedom for me
After moving from her hometown of Coventry to London to work in PR, Evans was inspired by the vloggers and influencers she encountered. She realised there was real potential for change in the car universe, and that she could be just the person to make it happen. “The car industry has been the same way for a long time now, and there are still a lot of old attitudes; there are people who have been around so long they’ve become too comfortable,” Evans says. “The industry just hasn’t been made relevant to people today. That’s where I wanted to step in – to bring something new.”
Queen B and her converted 1983 BMW E21 'Red'
© Patrik Lundin
Queen B was born. Evans quickly made an impact because, as she sees it, she’s “representative of an audience that isn’t really being spoken to right now”. She’s driven by a determination to show that car culture is something a new generation is adopting and liberating from old stereotypes. “It’s so much more accessible than people think,” says Evans. And by speaking the visual and conversational languages of her peers – in everything from her slick aesthetic to her informed but down-to-earth presenting style – she proves this.
Whether she’s taking a drive to McDonald’s in a bright green McLaren 570S or testing the mettle of various high-performance motors in her Girl’s Guide series of videos, Evans’ online content is characterised by her adventurous spirit and her keenness to show that cars can be a creative outlet. In fact, her own ride – the aforementioned Red, with its hypnotising bottle-cap rims and the satisfied purr of its exhaust – is a perfect example.
The BMW is the product of everything that inspires Evans about motoring; a labour of love that began five years ago when she found a photo of her mum with the same model. “I fell in love with it. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, but I had this vision for it, and I eventually ended up with Red as she stands today,” says Evans, her eyes lighting up. “The paint was a full back-to-bare-metal restoration; she has BBS RS wheels – they’re a classic motorsport wheel – and there’s air-ride suspension. And then there are the classic touches, like a wooden steering wheel and the original ’80s louvres [on the rear windshield]...”
There are still a lot of old attitudes in this industry
This is as geeky as Evans gets, but her energy makes her knowledge engaging, and this is helping to draw new people into her world. She’s starting to build a new scene that bears no resemblance to what’s come before. “Of course, I’m an anomaly: I’m a female in a particularly male-dominated world,” she says. “But that’s only because of how it’s been – there’s never been a variety of role models to help more people get into this space.”
It would be easy to create a narrative about a woman reclaiming the petrol-heavy space around her, but that doesn’t represent what Evans is trying to achieve. “What I’m doing is not female-centric,” she explains. “It’s about accessibility and saying, ‘You can do it, too!’ The fact I’m a girl is, to me, not an issue. When I was growing up, I was never made to feel any different, and that’s what I want to pass on. It’s great that I can inspire women – I love that – but I want to show that car culture can be extended to a different audience more generally.”
Becky wants to show the motoring industry is more relatable now
© Patrik Lundin
Evans says the mainstream automotive industry isn’t a welcoming place for newcomers, with prejudice and elitism blocking the path of anyone who doesn’t conform to the current norm. “I’ve had to work hard to get people to trust my knowledge base and my driving ability,” she says. “It’s an ongoing project. But the floor has never been opened up to someone from my background before. My USP is that I can talk to a completely different type of person.”
So, how can those of us who see a car purely as a means of getting from A to B catch Queen B’s automotive bug? “The internet has made our community so much more accessible,” she says. “I love that. What I would say to anyone wanting to know more is: get out there and do your research – through social media, YouTube – and get talking to people! A lot of my success and my growing audience is down to me being open and answering questions. I had my questions answered, too. And, of course, just follow me while you’re at it!”
Queen B doesn’t care who you are or where you’re from – she simply wants to share her passion, and to show you that once the dull language and unnecessary exclusivity is scrubbed away, you could feel differently about cars, too. “Cars have always represented a kind of freedom for me,” she says. “To create, escape, laugh and excite. I want to pass that on to other people. I want to breathe life into an industry that hasn’t had life breathed into it for a long time. I want to be the voice of a new generation of car lovers.”
Watch Queen B’s latest motorsport adventure – Drift Queen, in which she learns how to drift cars with the world’s best – at YouTube.com on October 17. And follow her on Instagram: @queenb