I’m a female car expert and I’ve spent £1m on supercars – sexist men always say the same thing to me
A FEMALE car expert who has splashed out £1million on supercars says sexist men always say the same thing to her.
Bonnie Locket, from Cheshire, said she had splashed the cash on her obsession throughout her life with her latest purchase being a Lamborghini Aventador, costing a cool £350,000.
The petrolhead has revealed though that many men don’t take her seriously despite have a vast knowledge and a garage crammed with supercars.
Bonnie, a 35-year-old influencer, shares her passion for fast cars on her and recently hit the headlines after getting steamy with her husband in the backseat to celebrate the purchase.
She now earns between £150,000 and £250,000 a month after she started the car-focused page online.
But despite her lifelong interest in fast vehicles, Bonnie often has to deal with "sexist comments" from men online who assume she knows nothing.
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She said: "There are so many people that say 'get her out the car scene'.”
“It's not very nice and I’m fed up of sexist men.
“But I suppose that's what you get from going into a male-dominated niche.
"I certainly don't know everything about cars, but I know a lot.
"It's nice to be able to educate myself further, as well as get other people involved.
I’m fed up of sexist men
Bonnie Locket
“There are trolls out there but I try to ignore them because I know it’s only because I'm a woman that I even get those kind of comments."
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In the real world, Bonnie has faced some prejudiced interactions with men too, but reveals her enthusiasm for cars wins them over more often than not.
She said: “Whenever my husband and I go out in the car or attend car shows, if people don’t know who I am they presume it’s his car, but he always turns around and says ‘actually it’s my wife’s car’ - they’re always shocked.
“When I was looking for my first supercar I wasn’t taken seriously at all, I would look round the show rooms and you could tell they were thinking I was either taking the p**s or dreaming.
”Now when I walk into a showroom they know I mean business, I bought my last four cars from George at GVE London and I’m a very loyal client of theirs.
“I’m always treated impeccably well and they always give me a great reveal, my last reveal of my G wagon and Twin Turbo SY Roadster are on my YouTube channel and it was a wicked party.”
Despite the lack of support from some men online, Bonnie insists she remains unfazed and has even come up with a cunning trick to use the hate comments to boost her user engagement.
She said: "I pretend to play dumb when writing captions - like saying a car is a ‘beautiful supra when it’s actually an evo' baiting men into leaving comments.
“But I think people are catching on, it’s quite obviously a joke.”
FAMILY OF PETROLHEADS
For Bonnie, her love of cars started at an early age, after her three older brothers would regularly take her along to car shows and the model revealed her parents have even owned supercars throughout their lives.
She said: "My brothers have always been well into cars and modding them.
“One brother had a Skyline and my mom, who is now 70, has an Evo ten, another brother has a Ferrari and I had my first supercar at 27.
"My brothers would always take me out in their cars and drive really fast with me and as a kid I just absolutely loved it.
"Cars have been a huge thing in our family, whenever I got a new car, I'd go home to show them.
"Brad, my husband, is a petrolhead as well, so every year for our anniversary, he takes us to the car show, Festival of Speed."
Being a woman has its advantages in the car world too, as Bonnie finds she is able to create content men would struggle to produce.
She said: "I don't know if a guy could get away with doing what I do – like when I go up to people at car shows and get them to rev their engine and things like that.
"It is really fun and people at these car shows don't always get to hear what the car sounds like because they're static shows.
"My TikTok has really blown up in the last week from when I did my first show, displaying my own car at Petrol Hedonism – I probably had 20million views this week.
“I’ve attended three car shows in the last few weeks and I’m at car shows most weekends, it’s going to be an amazing summer.
“It’s really exciting to show the world my car - it’s the only Twin Turbo SV roadster in the world so I’m really proud to be able to bring the car for everybody to see here in the UK.”
Over the years, the car-obsessed model has owned a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Jaguar XKR, Mercedes AMG GTS, a Ferrari California T and now owns an SV Roadster, a Lamborghini, which she Twin Turboed and an AMG G63.
MOVE INTO RACING
But her Lamborghini, at 1,400 horsepower, is the fastest car she's ever owned, and now Bonnie is setting her sights to racing.
She said: "I would like to do drag racing and I would also like to build a drift car and start doing drifting.
"I did a drifting day with a girl called Jolene McDonald aka Jojo, she's one of the best in the country at drifting and really respected – that was really fun.
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"I wanted to do it with a woman, there are so many people who aren’t very nice about women being on the car scene."
For Bonnie, showing her interest in cars online is not solely a way to boost her profile but also to set up a new career in the racing world.