Pedal to the Metal

As of 2024, less than 11% of auto mechanics were women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Things are different at Girls Auto Clinic repair center, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. This garage is run by a woman, employs virtually all women, and targets everything it does to the needs of women. That means offering a quiet and pristine waiting room with Wi-Fi, a TV, board games, and Legos for kids, and a salon that offers visitors speedy manicures and other services while mechanics work on their cars.

The garage was founded by Patrice Banks, who didn’t always feel comfortable at male-run auto shops. “I always felt taken advantage of by mechanics,” Banks told TIME. “I waited until the last minute to do repairs because I was afraid of being upsold.” According to NPR, Banks enrolled in night classes at a technical school to learn the trade herself. “I was the only girl with a bunch of boys, 19-year-old boys,” she told NPR. “That was interesting. I was 31.”

Eventually, Banks left her six-figure salary as an engineer. She worked in a couple of Philadelphia garages for free while she completed her training, and in 2016, she opened Girls Auto Clinic. Today, 75% of its clients are women.

On top of the paid services they provide, Banks and her staff offer free monthly workshops to the public. Anyone can come park their car in the garage and learn how to check and maintain everything from oil to brakes to tires.

Rich Carney, the only male mechanic on staff, left his job at another auto shop to join Girls Auto Clinic. “We’re not butting heads all the time,” Carney says. “It’s like everybody’s working together to get that common goal.”

The customers are happy, too. “I don’t know anything about cars, so usually when I go [to a mechanic], I feel a little intimidated about whatever they’re going to tell me the car needs,” first-time customer Erica Ezold told TIME. “This is going to be a different experience.”

This story was originally published in TIME on August 31, 2018.