There are probably not many people who pack more into their working lives than Lara Wilde.
A trailblazing businesswoman, Lara has worked for many years in Northern Australia’s food and agriculture industry, working with governments – state, national and local – in supporting and providing advice to primary producers, economic development projects and start-up businesses across the region and the state. While Lara is a leader and valued voice in that sector, she has, thanks to a lifelong obsession with cars, crafted an equally respected and influential parallel career in automotive.
Lara writes about the industry – including the motorsport sector and the car enthusiast community – for a variety of outlets and platforms, including this very magazine. She is a sought-after key note speaker at corporate functions, and commentator at automotive events, and her knowledge and experience has made her a popular guest on podcasts and radio shows.
As Deputy President of the Australian Women’s Motoring Network – a volunteer network, also known as Girls Torque, that provides mentorship, training and workshops – she is an active champion of women’s involvement in the industry and motorsport in particular. As a co-founder of the not-for-profit “MotorV8 Industries Mates”, she volunteers to improve mental health within the automotive community.
She is particularly well known in the car enthusiast community thanks to her commentary career at automotive events. With nearly a decade behind the microphone, Lara has provided the call for the 400 Thunder drag racing series on Kayo and Fox Sports, and at innumerable shows, including major national events such as Perth’s Motorvation, SummerNats in Canberra, the Red Centre NATS in Alice Springs and RockyNats in Rockhampton.
Lara’s passion project is her automotive business Wilde Drive, a vehicle (excuse the pun) through which she addresses a practical yet overlooked issue: empowering everyday drivers with the knowledge to feel confident in their car.
“I really want people to understand the ultimate lifestyle accessory that they have in their daily driver, and how to look after it,” she says. “As a small family, or as an individual, a $40,000 or $50,000 car is a big investment and you’ll want to know how to look after it so that 1: you don’t lose any money, and 2: you can seek every opportunity for adventure behind the wheel.
“If your kids want to go to soccer training on the other side of town, you have a safe, reliable car. If you get a job offer that’s on the other side of the country, you’ll have the confidence to say yes, grab that opportunity and drive to that job. You want to be able to know that if someone in your family needs to get to the hospital in a hurry and you can’t get an ambulance, that your car is ready to go.
“I’ve met women who have not left abusive relationships because they don’t know how to put fuel in the car, and so they were thinking, ‘If I go, I don’t have a car. I don’t know how to drive. I don’t know how to change a tyre. I don’t know how to look after this car to be independent.
“So, my big obsession, my passion, is Wilde Drive.”
Lara’s deep interest in cars and all things automotive is infectious. She has owned more vehicles than many a fleet company could boast, and every car is, she maintains, much more than just a means of getting around.
Her obsession began early, fuelled by a childhood spent in remote and regional Australia where a car was vital for everyday survival.
“I grew up on cattle stations that were an hour or more from town and, if you wanted to have any kind of life at all, you needed a set of wheels to get there,” she says.
“So, I have always been obsessed with cars. At Christmas, when other girls got Barbie dolls, I got Hot Wheels or, if I did get Barbie dolls, I’d leave them in the box, take them to school and trade them for Hot Wheels.”
Having a car offered a level of independence and freedom back then, and that desire for independence has stayed with Lara to this day. It is reflected in her career, and she has powerful feelings on gender disparities in the automotive industry, particularly motorsport. She can clearly see the benefit of organisations such as Girls Torque that have been created to help women succeed, but she paradoxically expresses frustration that such entities are necessary at all.
“It’s an organisation that’s been around for a very long time. Personally, I hate that it exists,” she says. “At no point has anyone ever been driving a race car and thought, if only I had different genitals, I could go faster . . . It’s simply that, as women, we’re not raised to see this as even on a spectrum of opportunities.”
Lara herself has, unfortunately, faced some of this misogynistic and patronising behaviour, including one particularly irksome moment after addressing a drivers’ briefing before a race.
“One of the men came up and he literally patted me on the head and said, ‘You did a very good job there, young lady.’ I was so mad!” she recalls. “I rang the president [of Girls Torque] Bridget Bell, who does a lot of commentary also, and got the chance to vent to someone else who knew what I was doing and knew what I was going through.
“And that opportunity brought home for me how important it is to have organisations like Australia’s Women’s Motoring Network and Auto Women . . . We’re not asking for a special race. We’re not asking for the women’s category or the ‘Best Woman’ trophy. We’re simply asking for a network of women who have walked the walk, who can mentor, who you can vent to, and who give you that opportunity.”
Lara urges women to be bold, to not shrink away from looking for and grabbing the opportunities that might present themselves in the automotive world, and to not be swayed by the pervasive idea that a woman should listen to what a bloke says when it comes to cars because, well, he’s a bloke.
“The secret to success, I think, is to say ‘Yes’,” she says. “Get in the arena and then figure out the answers later.
“I had no idea how to do drag racing commentary, but I said ‘yes’ and then I found some great people and put the support networks around me, I studied and did the work, and I learned.
“Say ‘Yes’. That’s the secret.
“And the advice I would give a young me if I could go back 40 years and start playing with cars again, is ‘Don’t take it as to be true and correct because a man said it was so.’
“Cars are not animals, they’re cars! Everything is nuts and bolts and there is a very pure, simple explanation for everything on a car.
“. . . Don’t put faith just because someone out there tells you you’re just a girl and it’s too hard. And definitely don’t take the first answer. If you really want that car and you really want to race it and you’re willing to put in the sweat and the broken fingernails and the greasy bits to do it, follow that dream, follow that passion – don’t wait for a man’s permission!”
Lara’s passion for cars has evolved to reach a point at which she seems to have spent much of her spare time buying, repairing, driving, enjoying, and then selling a quite diverse collection of vehicles – cars and bikes of all manner of makes and models, engine size and power, all of which were bought not particularly for practical or utilitarian purposes, but because they caught her eye in some fashion.
“Throughout my life, I’ve owned hundreds of cars and I’ve never gone shopping for a car thinking I need one with this many cup holders and it must do this kind of fuel economy.
“I shop for cars the same way some people shop for shoes or handbags. I adore it!” she says.
Today, Lara’s garage is filled with a motley collection of vehicles that reflect her passion for cars of all ages and her ability to find the charm in anything with a motor and some wheels.
“Currently, I have seven cars,” she says. “I have two old Kingswoods, a Mini Moke, a Suzuki Sierra, an Audi A5 which is my daily driver, and a Toyota Land Cruiser which is the love of my life and which, every time I drive it, I think you could not be happier in a car than I am in this one right now.
“I also have a 1976 Cadillac Coupe Deville, which is one of those slow-burning love affairs.
“I saw it on Facebook marketplace, and I thought, ‘Yes, this is meant to be! I must have her and she must be mine!’, she adds with a laugh. “It was a purely passionate decision.”
For someone with such deep enthusiasm for all things automotive, it comes as no surprise that when asked what car she would own if money were no object Lara struggles to pick just one and instead, as any self-respecting gearhead would do, ignores the parameters of the question and broadens the net.
“Someone asked me once to name my dream car and I maybe could pick 10 . . . but to pick one or two or three? Almost impossible,” she says, before claiming two stone-cold classics that would definitely be taking spots in her garage line-up.
“I would have a C1 Corvette. Without a doubt that is on my dream list. I would also have a Ford GT40,” she says.
“I would spend the majority of the budget on the perfect climate-controlled shed, and then I would just rotate cars through as I fell in love with them and fell out of love with them.”
Ultimately, Lara’s automotive adventures extend far beyond personal enjoyment or professional success. Her goal is inclusivity through sharing the enjoyment and understanding of cars and highlighting the independence they offer. For her, cars are gateways to opportunity, self expression, and connection.
“People have this expression through cars, and I think that’s what I love,” she says. “I love the independence. I love the power. I love the opportunity to say anytime I want I can just get up and go. If there’s a job in another part of the country that I want to go to, I can because I’ve got a car that will take me there. If I want to take my friends on an adventure, I can get in the car and I can take them with me . . . This is what I love about cars.”
