Emily Reeves, and her husband Aaron, build cars together and created ‘Flying Sparks Garage’, a YouTube channel that has grown over the years to a devout following of car enthusiasts. Emily is someone Continental Tire is celebrating during International Women’s History month, because we believe she’s making history in the work that she does. Emily divides her time between her professional modeling career and her content creation in the Flying Sparks Garage YouTube channel which features Behind the Build Vlogs, In the Shop with Emily, and more.
Check out the Flying Sparks Garage YouTube and Instagram pages as well as Emily’s own Instagram channel.
We sat down with Emily to find out more about what drives her ambition and how she uses her platform to influence the world around her.
Q: Who were the female role models in your life and how have they influenced you to become the woman that you are today?
A: My Mom and Grandmother for their spirits. The loving person that people experience me to be, I got from them. A model friend named Kiley taught me a lot about confidence in business. Taking charge and knowing my value! It manifested in the fashion industry at first but a few years later when I started the Flying Sparks Garage YouTube channel, those lessons really blossomed!
Q: As a professional model, how do you balance your career and your full-time content creation?
A: I really haven’t balanced it well, quite honestly! I never missed a modeling job, casting, audition or commercial shoot though - always on time, prepared and did my job to the fullest! I have modeled now for almost 19 years, so I have wonderful consistent clients that book me, even though 95% of my ambition was going toward building Flying Sparks Garage! I still love the fashion industry though, so I will find some balance in my investment of time this year!
Q: When did you and Aaron begin Flying Sparks Garage and how have you grown to have such a substantial following?
A: We began Flying Sparks Garage in March of 2015! The previous Christmas, he had surprised me with headers for my GTO, Roxy, so after installing them we had her on the dyno in mid-January for a fresh tune! During one of the pills she had an oil system failure and as the RPM dropped we heard the knocking! It was so terrible and my heart was broken for a few weeks! Then I had to figure out what to do! I decided that people were using Instagram and YouTube for marketing and building their brands and that’s what we should do!! We’re unique in that we work on cars together so we should capture it! With that, my hope was that I could get companies to work with us and I would provide them pictures and videos using their components!
Our following has steadily grown the past 5 years. While we haven’t created anything ‘viral’ or wildly shared anything to spike our followers or subscribers, we have had steady growth of quality viewers that really believe in who we are and what we do! That means a lot to us!
Q: Did you ever expect your following to become as large as it has?
A: Is it weird to say YES?! Haha! With all my hard work editing, all of Aaron’s hard work assembling the build plans and our hard work shooting and building the vehicles, I HAVE to keep my expectations HIGH and expect huge results. I expect our growth to keep building for years and years! We have huge dreams that turn into GOALS when we do the planning and hard work in order to see them come to fruition!
Q: How do you and Aaron use your channels to influence the world in a positive way?
A: Our goal is to inspire other couples and families to use their hobbies to bring them TOGETHER! Kids watch our show and get inspired to go help their dad on the project he’s had for years in the garage. Wives and girlfriends see me out there having fun and learning as I go and they’re like “well I see her doing it, showing mistakes and being real - I think I can do it too!” I get messages all the time with these kinds of stories! It’s SO COOL!
Q: What are your words of advice to young girls that want to pursue an automotive hobby or career one day?
A: Just START! Start somewhere. Watch videos of a job you want to take on and then start trying! Ask for help! Look for mentors! Your passion is where it starts, the seed! It needs constant attention to grow, so don’t get complacent and fall into ‘someday’ or ‘I’ve always wanted to’. TAKE ACTION! It’s better to TRY, FAIL and LEARN STUFF than it is to never try because you might not live up to your own expectations!