Comic Loni Love Gets Excited About the Lexus NX 300h's Design and Tech
And why Los Angeles to Las Vegas is her favorite road trip
By K.S. Wang
Quick Stats:Loni Love comic/hostThe Real
Daily Driver:2019 Lexus NX 300h (Loni's rating: 9 on a scale of 1 to 10)
Favorite road trip:Los Angeles to Las Vegas
Car she learned to drive in: 1970s Chevy Impala
First car bought:1993 Geo Spectrum
Comic and co-host ofThe Real, Loni Love is a long way from her 18-hour days at the General Motors factory, where she started working as soon as she finished high school.
"I have more respect for cars because back then when I was working at the General Motors plant, it was an assembly plant. This is before robotics; I used to have to build car doors. They called it 'the tram,'" Love says of her job. "I can't remember the car, it used to have carpeting, and you would have to put the trim in the door. It was a carpet, and you'd put the door handle, the window handle, you would put that in, and we used to do 500 a day."
The Detroit native still recalls the long shifts at GM. "We used to work Monday through Friday 18 hours a day, 10 hours on Saturday, and eight hours on Sunday, and that's what made me decide, 'You know what? I'm going to college,'" she tellsMotorTrend, with a laugh.
After six months at the plant, she went to college and earned a degree in electrical engineering. While she was in college, Love also had a summer internship with Ford in Flint. "I have a big respect for cars, and I have a love for them. People take it for granted when they look at the design and all the people that it takes to make it," she says. "That's why when I selected my car, I really wanted to select something that was about the design and the technology. That's why I picked a hybrid, and this design is very sleek."
Love did a lot of research before she bought her 2019 Lexus NX 300h hybrid, which she rates a 9 out of 10.
"I like that it handles like a smaller car. The drive is really smooth, which is what I need, but it still gives me the power of a luxury vehicle," she says. "When you're driving in L.A. the way I drive and because I'm a stand-up comic, I have to do a lot of road gigs. So it was best for me to invest in something that was comfortable, and it gives me everything that I need with the technology."
This is Love's first new car. "I wanted a luxury-type vehicle because ever since I've been a stand-up comic, I've always had used cars and your basic standard get-by type of car, and then once I got my TV show, I just wanted to treat myself and try something different," she says. "I really liked what this car had to offer, with this being part hybrid and everything I needed. That's why I decided to choose a Lexus."
The first car Love learned to drive in was her uncle's old Chevy Impala, which she says was probably a 1971 or 1972 model. "It was huge," she says, laughing. "I felt like I was learning how to drive in a ship. It was hilarious. Once you learn how to drive in a car that big, you can drive a bus."
She grew up in Detroit, and all her friends had cars, so she learned how to drive from them. "My mom was in a really bad car accident, and she never bought a car. She never learned how to drive after her accident, so I had to rely on my friends, my uncle, and my family."
Love learned to drive early. "Back in the day, my uncle would let me just drive to the store," she says. "I'm 13 driving to the store, while he's on the side listening to music and stuff. It was just like, 'OK, I'm going to teach you how to drive. Come one, let's go to the store,'" she says, with a laugh. "So that really was my first experience, and that's how I learned actual on-the-road driving: my uncle's driving school, which was not an official driving school."
It wasn't until Love rented a car for a gig while she was in college that she first drove on a highway. "My uncle never took me on the freeway even after I got my license. So that was an experience for me, actually riding on a freeway when I rented a car. I thought it was the most exhilarating thing ever because it was like the speed limit was 55, and I'd never driven that fast before. I still remember the expression on my face; I just felt so free driving like that," she says. "I don't know why I still remember that."
Love learned to drive a car with a manual transmission when she and a classmate drove from college in Texas back to Detroit for winter break.
"She had a stick shift. It was that new Dodge Neon, so I had to learn how to drive as we were driving. It took 36 hours from Texas to Detroit, and by the time I was done, I knew how to drive a stick shift," she says. "It was just the two of us, so, pressure. I had to learn, I had to do it."
While she was in college, Love bought a four-door 1993 Geo Spectrum with money she'd earned from gigs. "It was baby blue, I'll never forget, and I put tinted windows on it because I was in college. I started doing stand-up in school, so I had side money, and I used that money to help pay my car note. Back then my car was maybe $300 a month because it was basic; it didn't have anything," she laughs. "It was stick shift; it was just the car. It was so basic, but that's how I paid for it. I wished we had had Uber back then, because I would have been Ubering for days to pay for it."
At her Ford internship, Love would often talk to engineers around her. "The thing that always amazed me working at those companies is that they had these great concept cars. I thought it was amazing that these concept cars were really fast. I always asked questions of the engineers at the time. 'Why don't you guys build them?' They said, 'We don't have the roads to handle them.' I always thought it was interesting we have engineering minds that engineer things, but we don't have the infrastructure to handle it."
