But just because the Volvo four-cylinder could theoretically fit into the Iron Maven didn’t make it a slam dunk—far from it. For one thing, the team couldn’t find any stand-alone aftermarket control modules that could handle a turbocharger and supercharger at the same time, not to mention direct injection and all the other complicated layers of a modern car’s powertrain. Plus all the electronics have to talk to each other. Pick and choose your features, and the whole thing just won’t work. That’s when Bogi realized she needed the entire drivetrain. In other words, she needed to cut up an entire car.

Girl Gang Garage

“That is dope,” she said of turbo and supercharging the same engine. “I’m all about that. Who does that?”

Learning Skills and Confidence In Them

Since 2017 Bogi has brought women of all skill levels from around the world to her Phoenix-based garage to create special, all-female-built vehicles for the SEMA Show, an annual automotive extravaganza where highly stylized show cars mingle with acres of aftermarket parts and accessories. Some women bring serious professional welding, body work, and painting skills to the Girl Gang Garage table. Others, like yours truly, have been learning on their own via YouTube or through the occasional garage mentor. Still others roll into the shop having never so much as turned a wrench. Bogi originally started the All-Female builds as part of her ongoing Girl Gang Garage effort to not only to shine a more positive light on how women and cars are perceived but also to bring like-minded women interested in being mechanics together to learn from each other, be it technical knowledge or interpersonal skills like how to properly manage a business. That, and to commiserate about the very real struggles of being a woman in a predominantly male field. “The build is important, but it’s just the vehicle, no pun intended, for all of the rest of the stuff that happens,” Bogi said. “It’s on our lunch breaks when we’re sharing stories of being sexually harassed at work. Or not getting the raise. Or dealing with a-holes that we work with and having younger women in the field hearing from women who have been in the field longer.” In between all that stuff, Bogi and her teams have been doing amazing work creating memorable vehicles. And for this year’s SEMA Show, Bogi’s all-female crew is cooking up something special with the help of the folks from Volvo, combining a 2019 Volvo S60 with a classic 1961 Volvo PV544—a vehicle that’s been dubbed the Iron Maven. At first, Bogi wanted to swap the vintage Volvo’s old inline-four engine with a Volvo-sourced V-8 (the automaker briefly offered a V-8 for its XC90 SUV in the 2010s), but thanks to the PV544’s tiny engine compartment, there was no way that was happening. Then Bogi learned about Volvo’s latest-generation 2.0-liter inline-four that's both turbocharged and supercharged. She dug the concept and thought that could be the answer.

Mating a modern powertrain with a vintage vehicle is never easy, more so with a plug-in hybrid.

Team members are often crawling underneath and all over the Iron Maven.

Bogi is always teaching, working, and smiling as her projects unfold.

“I’m done with this,” she yelled as she threw the wig in the air and jumped in the pool, with Bogi leading a group of women whooping, hollering, and cheering her on as she did. Sarah “Bogi” Lateiner is not only an A.S.E.-certified mechanic and star of the All Girls Garage TV show, but she’s also become an inspiration, a woman with a knack for helping other women find the confidence to take a bald-headed leap of faith in themselves.

There’s a wig in the breakroom at Bogi’s garage. Not just any wig. It’s kept there as a symbol of one woman’s cathartic journey working with master mechanic Bogi Lateiner and her Girl Gang Garage all-female crew a couple of years back. The cancer survivor had just spent a few days with the team wrenching on a vehicle to display at the annual SEMA Show, and one night at Bogi’s house over some beers, she decided the wig she’d been wearing was no longer needed.

Take one vintage Volvo, one electrified Volvo powertrain, add “All Girls Garage” star Bogi Lateiner and a crew of empowered women and you’ve got magic.

Building More Than Cars

Emme Hall - Writer | Kevin Arechiga - Photographer | Aug 22, 2022

MotorTrend

Throwing in an Electrified Curveball

By the time my turn came to work on the Iron Maven, Bogi had the engine mostly installed and was working on adding 11 inches to the front fenders. The track of the S60 is predictably much wider than the PV544 given how much space the S60’s subframes and electric motors take up. So if you can’t narrow the width of the track, then you need to widen the fenders. As previously mentioned, I’m no mechanic, but I’m learning. However, I’m terrified of the cut-off wheel tool. I’m afraid of the sparks, and I always think the wheel will dislodge and cut my face in half while I’m using it. I never should have mentioned this to Bogi, because she immediately put me on a metal-working project using said wheel. After donning a pair of safety glasses, I was asked to measure and cut a strip of metal to be used as a flange for the Iron Maven’s hood. I learned how to use a sheetmetal bender (what I thought would be complicated was really little more than a quick lever pull) and discovered the universe-shattering metal stretcher/shrinker tool, which enabled me to apply a gentle bend to match that of the hood. By the end of the day I was grinding out welds, sparks and all. Of course, mistakes were made, but this is a safe place to do it. Sure, it means the build can take longer, and I’d venture to guess Bogi and her regular crew will probably spend extra time getting Iron Maven back on track after hosting dilettantes like myself. But in the end, these builds are as much about women gaining confidence in their abilities as anything else. I personally walked away with more cut-off wheel experience, something I needed for my own project car, which always seems to need a fender modified or a bolt sheared off.

Learning to Love the Cut-Off Wheel

Big Takeaways

Like me, participants of All-Female builds have used the skills they’ve learned to help them in myriad ways. One woman opened her own restoration shop. Another was able to double her body shop’s business as a result of some of the lessons she learned. Others, like Barbie the Welder, went from being an everyday welder to a well-known role model in the field with a large Instagram following. One participant even scheduled her chemo treatments around the first all-female SEMA vehicle creation, a 1957 Chevrolet pickup with a BMW S62 V-8 engine underhood dubbed the Chevy Montage. When she was officially in remission, she later told Bogi, “The doctors cured my cancer, but the Chevy Montage saved my life.” While Bogi understands the power of the community she’s been able to foster through her efforts, she’s still been taken aback at times by how profound an effect the All-Female build program has had on some of its participants. It’s the stories of women triumphing in the face of adversity, of finding success in future endeavors, and of course that wig, which serve as ever-present reminders of why she does what she does. “It became so much bigger than I expected it to be,” she said of that first Chevy Montage build. “I knew we were going to build a cool car. I knew it would be about community and building each other up, but I had no idea of the magic that would happen.”

There’s a wig in the breakroom at Bogi’s Garage. Not just any wig. It’s kept there as a symbol of one woman’s cathartic journey working with master mechanic Bogi Lateiner and an all-female crew a couple of years back. The cancer-survivor had just spent a few days with the team wrenching on a vehicle to display at the annual SEMA show, and one night at Bogi’s house over some beers, she decided the wig she’d been wearing was no longer needed. “I’m done with this,” she yelled as she threw the wig in the air and jumped in the pool, with Bogi leading a group of women whooping, hollering, and cheering her on as she did. Sarah “Bogi” Lateiner is not only an A.S.E.-certified mechanic and star of the “All Girls Garage” TV show, but she’s also become an inspiration, a woman with a knack for helping other females find the confidence to take a bald headed leap of faith in themselves.

Take one vintage Volvo, one electrified Volvo powertrain, add “All Girls Garage” star Bogi Lateiner and a crew of empowered women and you’ve got magic.

Learning Skills and Confidence In Them

Since 2017 Bogi has brought women of all skill levels from around the world to her Phoenix-based garage to create special, “All-Female” built vehicles for the SEMA show, an annual automotive extravaganza where highly stylized show cars mingle with acres of aftermarket parts and accessories. Some women bring serious professional welding, body work, and painting skills to the table. Others, like yours truly, have been learning on their own via YouTube or through the occasional garage mentor. Still others roll into the shop having never so much as turned a wrench. Bogi originally started the All-Female builds in an effort to not only shine a more positive light on how women and cars are perceived, but to also bring like-minded females interested in being mechanics together to learn from each other, be it technical knowledge or interpersonal skills like how to properly manage a business. That, and to commiserate about the very real struggles of being a woman in a predominantly male field. “The build is important but it’s just the vehicle, no pun intended, for all of the rest of the stuff that happens,” said Bogi. “It’s on our lunch breaks when we’re sharing stories of being sexually harassed at work. Or not getting the raise. Or dealing with a-holes that we work with and having younger women in the field hearing from women who have been in the field longer.” In between all that stuff, Bogi and her teams have been doing amazing work creating memorable vehicles. And for this year’s SEMA show, Bogi’s all-female crew is cooking up something special with the help of the folks from Volvo, combining a 2019 Volvo S60 with a classic 1961 Volvo PV544—a vehicle that’s been dubbed the “Iron Maven.” At first, Bogi wanted to swap the vintage Volvo’s old inline four-cylinder engine with a Volvo-sourced V-8 (the automaker briefly offered a V-8 for its XC90 SUV in the 2010s), but thanks to the PV544’s tiny engine compartment, there was no way that was happening. Then Bogi learned about Volvo’s latest-generation 2.0-liter, inline four-cylinder that's both turbocharged and supercharged. She dug the concept and thought that could be the answer.

“That is dope,” she said of turbo and supercharging the same engine. “I’m all about that. Who does that?”

But just because the Volvo four cylinder could theoretically fit into the Iron Maven didn’t make it a slam dunk, far from it. For one thing, the team couldn’t find any standalone aftermarket control modules that could handle a turbocharger and supercharger at the same time, not to mention direct injection and all the other complicated layers of a modern car’s powertrain. Plus all the electronics have to talk to each other. Pick and choose your features and the whole thing just won’t work. That’s when Bogi realized she needed the entire drivetrain. In other words, she needed to cut up an entire car.

Throwing in an Electrified Curveball

Enter Volvo. Bogi and the Iron Maven project found a friend in Volvo’s head of media relations, Russell Datz. He dug up an S60 for Bogi and said she could have it, free and clear. Just one thing, though. This particular turbocharged and supercharged midsize sedan came with an electrified surprise. Turns out the car in question was a 2019 Volvo S60 T8 eAWD Plug-In Hybrid, which features a powertrain with two rear-mounted electric motors and an 11.6 kWh battery pack that enables the car to go up to 21 miles on electric power alone. It outputs a healthy 400 total system horsepower and 472 lb-ft of torque when the engine and e-motors are at full tilt, with an eight-speed automatic transmission doing the shifting. Now the problem became how to shoehorn this high-tech drivetrain into the old PV544. Bogi and her team of all-female mechanics stripped down the S60, dropped it to the floor and subframe and proceeded to literally cut it in half. Then they took 16 inches out of the wheelbase and welded it back together. After that was done, they cut out the floor and firewall of the old PV544 and mated the two, cutting as needed. Incorporating the plug-in hybrid drivetrain into the build meant learning new skills while still calling on Bogi and her team’s more traditional and extensive experience with internal-combustion engine (ICE) powered vehicles. “It’s been really cool to see how much carryover from ICE there is on this PHEV,” she said. “From a tech’s standpoint I think electrified cars are cool because it’s a new thing to learn. At the end of the day that’s what these builds are about. Pushing our skill set.”

"Electric vehicles are cool because it's a new thing to learn."

Star of the “All Girls Garage” TV show

creating memorable vehicles

MOTORTREND | INTERVIEWS

Enter Volvo. Bogi and the Iron Maven project found a friend in Volvo’s head of media relations, Russell Datz. He dug up an S60 for Bogi and said she could have it, free and clear. Just one thing, though. This particular turbocharged and supercharged midsize sedan came with an electrified surprise. Turns out the car in question was a 2019 Volvo S60 T8 eAWD Plug-In Hybrid, which features a powertrain with two rear-mounted electric motors and a 10.4-kWh battery pack that enables the car to go up to 21 miles on electric power alone. It outputs a healthy 400 total system horsepower and 472 lb-ft of torque when the engine and motors are at full tilt, with an eight-speed automatic transmission doing the shifting. Now the problem became how to shoehorn this high-tech drivetrain into the old PV544. Bogi and her team of all-female mechanics stripped down the S60, dropped it to the floor and subframe, and proceeded to literally cut it in half. Then they took 16 inches out of the wheelbase and welded it back together. After that was done, they cut out the floor and firewall of the old PV544 and mated the two, cutting as needed. Incorporating the plug-in hybrid drivetrain into the build meant learning new skills while still calling on Bogi and her team’s more traditional and extensive experience with internal combustion engines (ICE). “It’s been really cool to see how much carryover from ICE there is on this PHEV,” she said. “From a tech’s standpoint I think electrified cars are cool because it’s a new thing to learn. At the end of the day that’s what these builds are about: pushing our skill set.”

The InEVitable Vodcast Episode 10: All-Girls Garage Star and Girl Gang Boss Bogi Lateiner, Part 1

That magic continues with the Volvo Iron Maven project, which will debut at the 2022 SEMA Show this fall. We’ll be there to see it in all its glory as it’s revealed and will report back on the finished product as well as more about the women who did the hard work necessary to get another All-Female build across the finish line.

Edward Loh | Aug 21, 2022