Industry Event “Heels & Wheels” Puts Female Car Enthusiasts in the Driver’s Seat

The showstopping 2025 McLaren Artura Spider © Kelsi Pich

All-women drive event Heels and Wheels has blossomed into a staple of the West Coast automotive scene. Showcasing cars from leading manufacturers and featuring prominent female figures from the industry, this year’s gathering in Portland marked a special occasion: its 12th anniversary and proud milestone for founder Christine Overstreet, whose background in automotive PR, which included heading up dealer training programs for Nissan and public relations for Kia Motors America (where she supported media covering the Kia Motors Team Paris-Dakar 2000 run), inspired her to create an alternative to the traditional often male-dominated car show.

Heels & Wheels: By Women, For Women

Heels & Wheels began as a platform to encourage discussions about cars from a female perspective, focusing on what women seek in vehicles—whether a family-friendly XUV or a sporty convertible—and bring together professionals with a shared automotive focus for real-world, on-road testing. It also recognizes women as a significant force in automotive purchasing. A 2021 Cars.com study found that women influenced 85 percent of household car-buying decisions and accounted for 62 percent of shoppers, yet women make up only a quarter of dealership sales staff. Overstreet notes that participants not only offer valuable insights among industry peers but also share information on vehicles, empowering their audiences and female consumers with greater knowledge and buying confidence.

The writer getting acquainted with the V90 Cross Country

Catching up with familiar faces and forging new friendships and connections with women across the industry is another major draw for newbie and veteran attendees. Plus, the opportunity to network with an increasing number of women in key roles at North American car manufacturers. This year, Volvo’s brand and lifestyle communications lead Amanda Ignatius, Mazda public affairs manager Tamara Mlynarczyk, and product communications specialist at Toyota North America Breanne McCallop attended alongside representatives from Audi, Cadillac, and Rivian.

The Car List

No stranger to coordinating the myriad details that go into such events, since 2010, Overstreet and the team at her company Overstreet Events have handled logistics for national and global drives with top automakers, from Aston Martin and Jaguar Land Rover to Maserati. Tending to be “hands-off” about the Heels & Wheels car list, she instead lets manufacturers select fleet vehicles to offer attendees a broad mix of drive experiences depending on coverage interests and focus, and the lineup this year did not disappoint.

Lined up outside The Porter Portland

There was all-weather hybrid the 2025 Toyota Camry XSE AWD, and a KIA EV9 GT-Line AWD, whose impressive range, spacious three-row design and high-tech interior made it a top contender in its class and 2024 World Car of The Year award winner. Another three-row, and a personal all-round favorite the Mazda CX-90, appeared too alongside track toys everyone wanted to try: a Nissan Z Nismo and McLaren Artura Spider.

Heels & Wheels 2024 kicked off at The Porter Portland in downtown Portland with a reception sponsored by Nissan and a presentation by Cars.com research and insights director Amie Lindaas that looked at how Gen Z is redrawing the roadmap for car buying. Key takeaways were lifestyle fit resonates more than brand loyalty (Toyota, Mazda and KIA among some of the most trusted) with affordability a key decider. Perhaps most surprisingly, though, Gen Z values the good old-fashioned dealership as their go-to for car shopping over apps like Carvana and Cazoo. Next morning, the Overstreet team and hotel valet had their work cut out lining up 14 vehicles for our morning route out to The Allison Inn & Spa for a full and fast-paced day of test drives in a very bucolic and verging on autumnal Oregon Wine Country.

Luxury Wagons to the ‘Supercar of SUVs’

Station wagons may not be as popular in America as they are in Europe, but Volvo is shifting perceptions with its adventure-ready V90 Cross Country B6 AWD Ultra. From an aesthetic perspective, I was immediately smitten by its sporty silhouette, dark wood trim, and chic crystal shifter by Swedish glassware specialists Orrefors. Volvo’s top-spec model is packed with features, too, including the now-standard massaging seats. The car handled beautifully on the road, delivering impressive acceleration and solid highway fuel economy as we traveled south towards Willamette Valley. I awarded extra points for the cargo space, which, as a “DINK” person who likes heading to the mountains, looked just right for loading up the skis.

Dawn Gibson-Thigpen aka Sassy Auto Chick in the DBX707

Next up was the Audi A6 Avant, a powerhouse of practicality with an impressive 621 horsepower and a thrilling 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds. This twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 performance wagon was a joy to drive, even if the nine-mile Bald Peak Loop offered just a 17-minute glimpse of its capabilities, leaving me – and everyone else who drove it that day – eager for more. Inside, the 2024 model had luxurious details galore and featured an intuitive tech-savvy infotainment system, including a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, dual touchscreens, plus a Bang & Olufsen stereo as standard. Starting at $125,800, optional upgrades like the heads-up display and a motion-activated rear liftgate would push the price to just over $144,000.

For those with a taste for extravagance, the 2025 Aston Martin DBX707—a true celebration of excess—stood out in a striking Synapse Orange exterior-interior combination. With a price tag of $352,200, the most expensive car tested that day, it narrowly edged out the McLaren by $21,900. This super-SUV packs a 697-horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine and a nine-speed automatic transmission, offering both extreme power and surprisingly straightforward handling compared to the Cadillac Lyriq AWD Sport 3. The Lyriq was a pleasure to drive, but its LED touchscreen, serving as both the infotainment system and driver gauge display, was a challenge to navigate at first. As for the Aston drive experience, Dawn Gibson-Thigpen (aka Sassy Auto Chick) put it best: “The DBX707 is an SUV with a sportscar soul.”

The EVs

Arnie would approve. The Hummer EV3 © Keri Bridgwater/JustLuxe

Arnold Schwarzenegger purchased the first civilian Hummer to roll off the assembly line in 1992, but under GMC, Hummer is back with a powerful all-electric version. Well-engineered and well-designed, the Hummer EV SUV felt like a broad shouldered luxurious beast. I didn’t get to play with the crab-walk mode or remove any of the T-top roof panels, but the 35-inch off-road tires and four-wheel steering made it feel equally manageable on the highway as it did on country roads around The Alison Inn. And about as far removed from its gas-guzzling older sibling as you could get, I was floored to learn its Ultium battery tech provides an estimated range of 300-plus miles.

Having admired a growing number of Rivians around San Diego, I was thrilled to get behind the wheel of a 2025 R1S Performance Dual Max. A lifestyle brand whose adventure-centric EVs are associated with the outdoors, it makes sense a former gas station near Yosemite National Park has become its newest charging outpost. Aesthetically, the R1S is a total head turner and, although weighing in at 7000lbs, felt agile on every section of the drive loop. The cabin was impressively quiet, too. Even more impressive? Its 410-mile range on a full charge.

The Track Toys

Keri Bridgwater/JustLuxe

Track-ready performance car, the 2024 Nissan Z Nismo, was at the top of my ‘would like to drive’ list for the day, and by late afternoon, I had my chance. There was no manual transmission (like the Nissan Z, which I happily drove back into Santa Barbara during Heels & Wheels 2022); however, the 9-speed auto is specially tuned for precise shifts that driving enthusiasts (aka purists) will enjoy. As a Datsun 240Z fan girl, I loved the two-seaters’ retro-modern exterior styling, although, on this model, design elements were inspired by the GT500 race car. Inside the cabin, a cockpit-like interior and sports seats ramped up the racetrack vibes. To make things fair, Overstreet allotted 30-minute drive times per car, but with the twin-turbo 3L V6 making it such a visceral experience, it would have been fantastic to get a little better acquainted with the paddle shifters. With an EPA fuel economy of 17mpg around town, it’s not the sort of motor you’d pop to the shops in, but if you did, you’d no doubt have a great time and turn a lot of heads along the way. 

McLaren press officer Natalie Riordan in the Artura Spider

The buzziest drive of the day was undoubtedly the 2025 McLaren Artura Spider: an agile, lightning-fast supercar in Volcano Blue with a $330,300 MSRP that idled deep. Its twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 engine paired with an electric motor produces 690 horses and boasts a 0-60 mph time of around 3 seconds. The gullwing doors (the interior handles resemble a can opener) took a minute to figure out, so by the time I set off for my six-minute loop around the block – in comfort mode, albeit with the retractable hardtop down – all that information flew straight out of my head. But perhaps as all first supercar experiences go, the moment I climbed out of the cockpit, heart racing, it left me wanting more. Until Heels & Wheels 2026, then.

All photos courtesy Kelsi Pich/Heels & Wheels unless otherwise noted.

Amelia Dalgaard aka MotorHead Mama scopes out the McLaren