By Tom Roland
When she moved to Los Angeles, Courtney Hansen hoped simply to become a TV host.
She reached that goal when she got a job with The Learning Channel's "Overhaulin' " series. But in the process, she also threw a monkey wrench into some of the stereotypes about women and automobiles.
We're all familiar with those ideas - that women buy a car based on its color instead of its performance, or that they're easily fooled by auto mechanics.
Hansen knows her way around an engine, and she's earned respect while proving that on camera. "I do feel like one of the pioneers, infiltrating this man's world," she admits during a conversation in plush leather chairs in a corner of a Beverly Hills Coffee Bean. Hansen is charming, intelligent and quick with responses in a voice made hoarse by allergies.
And she's extremely confident-a trait she needed when she started on "Overhaulin'." The producers originally saw the female co-host role as little more than window dressing. They hired her because she was enthusiastic and knowledgeable about cars -her father, Jerry Hansen, won more races than any other driver in the Sports Car Club of America's amateur series -but the first episode showed none of that interest. Some viewers skewered her as Hollywood fluff.
Undeterred, she rolled up her sleeves and set out to prove her critics wrong. Hansen now takes part in just about every aspect of "Overhaulin' " - not only helping to pull one over on the victim whose car is being remade, but stripping off old parts and screwing new ones into place.
"I grew up in garages and in the pits, and I was like a little race kid," she says. "So I wanted to dive into this and really earn the respect of the audience, the fellow builders, Chip Foose-everybody that we were working with-and so I just started learning mechanics and learning car fabrication. I took part in everything."
Hansen, who drives a black Thunderbird convertible with a tan top, turned the "Overhaulin' " opportunity into a mini-industry. She writes a car advice column for FHM magazine and is working on a book, The Car Chick's Handbook For The Garage.
All of this fits nicely with the plan she laid out when she left a secure corporate marketing job in Florida for an uncertain future in California in 2002. Her dad warned her that the odds of succeeding in L.A. were very low, but she simply threw his teaching back at him.
"My dad is extremely tenacious," she explains. "He's very driven - pun intended - and he's got that winning mentality, not only in racing, but in business. He's always been a fighter and an achiever and a winner."
"I said, 'Dad, I have your winning mentality, and there's only one conclusion: I will succeed out there. I will make it happen.' "
"Overhaulin'," it turns out, might be just the starting line for her career. She recently took her first acting role, playing a depressed, pregnant woman in the independent movie Mercy and Grace, which is still in production. She's developing a news/documentary show that she would host, and she's auditioned for other TV shows. "Overhaulin'" might end up a stepping stone on her resume, but she'll be a car freak even after she moves on.
"I wanna continue to embrace the automotive world," she says. "I just gravitate there naturally, and it's been received so well that I'd love to continue being the female automotive expert."
