Lucy Matthews drives a 1994 Jeep Wrangler that doesn’t have air conditioning, roars as loud as a tractor and absolutely guzzles gasoline.
It’s the car of her dreams.
“Those EV cars, they’ll run you over because you can’t even hear them,” said Matthews, 28, who lives in Manchester, England, and bought her navy Jeep Wrangler YJ last month for about $16,500. She said that people look at her and think: That’s a cool girl, driving a cool car. “And there’s something fun about a car that’s quite bouncy.”
In wealthy zip codes and tony beach towns, shiny new luxury cars have taken a back seat as a status symbol. Instead, young women are pining for throwback, off-road SUVs. They’re “hot girl” cars—accessories meant to be flaunted on social media.
“I’ll just sit in a coffee shop and watch a million girls take a photo in front of my car,” said Tezza Barton, a 35-year-old content creator and founder in Los Angeles who got a brown 1995 Mercedes-Benz 230GE soft top SUV last year for about $100,000. “It’s the perfect backdrop.”
Classic cars have always enthralled collectors. Now interest in vintage Jeeps, Land Rover Defenders and Ford Broncos is surging for women who will pay top dollar for old cars, never-ending upkeep be damned. Kendall Jenner has a 1989 Toyota Land Cruiser. Sydney Sweeney has been spotted in Los Angeles driving a 1969 red Bronco she restored herself. Mega influencer Alix Earle often posts photos inside vintage pickup trucks and Broncos.
“The power steering and turning radius are different than a modern SUV, but that’s kind of the point,” Earle said.
Banyan Motors, a Houston-based company that restores 20th-century German cars, says its roster of female clients rose 60% in the past two years. At classic-car insurance company Hagerty, the number of women under 50 who bought Broncos from the ’60s and ’70s jumped 82% over the past three years.
“An older Jeep seems very fun and girly to me, whereas a new Jeep is just not as cool,” said Lauren Drexel, a 20-year-old content creator in West Palm Beach, Fla. She drives a 2000 Jeep Sahara her parents bought as a gift. Drexel had Apple CarPlay installed in her vehicle, but she doesn’t have a backup camera. “I kind of just YOLO it,” said Drexel about parallel parking.
Women like Drexel are happy to bop around town in cars with analog features—stick-shift, questionable air bags, windows that must be cranked. Others are dropping six figures on upgraded SUVs. While car collectors pine for restored cars, many young women prefer restomods, short for restored and modified, that retain their vintage exterior but are updated with modern comforts and safety features.
“I associate it with the Southern California dream life: fun, happy, easy, casual,” said MaryRalph Bradley, co-founder and chief creative officer of clothing brand Daily Drills. Bradley, 29, bought a custom 1976 Bronco last year for about $125,000.
Restomod SUVs have price tags that connote luxury, but owners say they also demonstrate a different type of status.
“A G-Wagen is for a rich girl who does Pilates, and a vintage Defender is for a girl who has edge,” said Becca Elliott, a web designer in Washington. Elliott, 29, recently bought a restored 1987 Defender in mint green for $76,000 that “drives like a grizzly, old truck.”
“It is loud and slow, and would make someone impatient lose their minds,” said Elliott. “But it’s got that wow factor.”
At Velocity Restorations, female buyers are up 13% since 2024, said chief revenue officer Tom Maxwell. The Pensacola, Fla., company sells restomod cars priced as high as around $460,000.
Heather Beitz, CEO of a clinical-research company in Atlanta, bought a restomod 1977 green Bronco for $300,000 without even driving it.
“I always had a crush on this car when I was young,” Beitz, 58, said.
In mansion-lined beach communities, renting out vintage SUVs has become a lucrative business. Anabelle Yi and her boyfriend run East End Reserve, which rents out vintage Defenders on Nantucket for about $500 a day. They have plans to expand with more vintage cars in the Hamptons in New York and West Palm Beach.
Yi said 80% of her clients are women ages 20 to 40. They are hardly car enthusiasts but dream of vintage Defenders because of images in “travel, fashion, and design,” Yi said.
Jim Levi runs Cars for Event Rental in Long Island, where he says 80% of his bookings are women, mostly reserving cars for photoshoots. The look they’re going for is American nostalgia. His vehicles subtly signal wealth because of their expensive upkeep, Levi said. Part of the appeal is implying that you can afford to take care of it.
“If you buy a Defender for $70,000, it will be the best $120,000 you ever spent,” he joked.
Elliott, the web designer, said she’s spent an additional $31,000 on her Defender since buying it. “The costs are no joke,” she said. She’s often stopped by male spectators who feel inclined to warn her about her car’s costs.
Phia Dennis, a fashion and lifestyle Substacker, owns a 1997 green Defender that her parents bought her as a graduation gift a few years ago.
“I have gone places where people think I’m driving junk on wheels,” Dennis, 25, said. “And then there are other times when people give me a thumb’s up of recognition.”
Coco Franklin, a yoga and roller-skating instructor in Long Beach, Calif., bought a 2003 Jeep Wrangler a few years ago. It reminded her of the car from the iconic ’90s film “Clueless,” and Franklin, 42, loves driving a stick shift.
“The boys see you driving manual,” Franklin said, “and they just come out of the woodwork.”
Write to Chavie Lieber at Chavie.Lieber@WSJ.com
