How the Daughter of Car Designers Became an Automotive Enthusiasm Evangelist

Adrienne Peters was born with a silver sketchpad in her hands, the daughter of Tom and Carolyn Peters—both ArtCenter grads working for GM Design. If those names ring a bell, MotorTrend went cruising Woodward with Tom and Adrienne in 2017. When she was born, her parents’ ArtCenter prof and MotorTrend design contributor Strother MacMinn sent a telegram congratulating them and inviting their new daughter to join the college’s class of 2010. From an early age, Adrienne herself envisioned design as her likely career path.

Her passion for cars was certainly fostered by mom and dad’s frequent sketching of future designs, her folks’ classic cars (like a Kandy Apple Red ’69 COPO Camaro clone Tom had built), the steady stream of captured-fleet test cars they came home with, and frequent trips to racetracks and car shows like Detroit’s Autorama. And while she was surrounded by elevated design in the family’s mid-century modern house and organically home-schooled in design fundamentals of forms, surfacing, perspective, and color gradation, she never felt any pressure to study car design. And by age 9 or 10, she realized she didn’t “have it.” “I loved the concept of being a creative and a designer and being around that world, but it just didn't flow out of me.”

Living in suburban Detroit put Woodward Avenue within easy reach, and her driving-age years were particularly formative. “I had a really tight-knit group of gearhead friends.We all had different skill levels, passions, and ways that we expressed ourselves in car culture. This taught me to work with different personalities, skill sets, and perspectives. You know, eventually we're going to get these headers on the car, but it's gonna take all of us throwing out different ideas and this person holding this swivel socket and working together to problem-solve.”

In between racking up speeding tickets on Woodward, her posse would run down to Milan Dragway for test-and-tune nights. Adrienne’s mount was a 1999 Camaro SS, which she bought with Hooker Headers already installed and continued to elevate. She added a set of exhaust cutouts, carrying the tools needed to unbolt them somewhere just out of earshot of home but well in advance of reaching school.

Adrienne and her pals dreamed of owning a fabrication shop where they could wrench on their rides, and when she enrolled in Oakland University, she got a morning job at Custom Creations. There she worked fabricating show properties for GM and 1,000-horsepower muscle cars for clients, learning to weld and do all the other things her future fabrication shop might need to do, while earning the business degree she’d need to manage it. 

A fringe benefit was being allowed to work on special projects after hours, like her dream “1970” Monte Carlo (the VIN says 1972, but it’s trimmed as a ’70). Dad Tom helped her sketch out the sleek, minimalist, murdered-out look; she recontoured the frame to accommodate the tubbing necessary to fit the 14-inch rear wheels and tires inside the stock quarter panels, which gave her plenty of practice welding.

During this build, Adrienne realized that fabrication was just another elaborate form of storytelling. “I was creating my story with the Monte Carlo—my first full ground-up build—and that's what drove me to pivot away from shop ownership and focus on marketing communications.” She’s been helping tell auto industry and aftermarket stories ever since.

Another pivotal moment for Peters was her first pilgrimage to the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) show at age 19. Father Tom was manning the GM booth, but an uncle in the wheel biz got her credentials. “I walked every square foot of that show, and I talked to everyone who would give me the time of day about what qualities they were looking for in an entry-level position on their team. What is your company about? What skill sets are important to you?What challenges or opportunities do you see in the industry? I knew that relationships are your most valuable form of currency in this industry.”

Flying home from that SEMA, Tom and Adrienne just happened to be on the same flight as Jim Campbell, who would soon become vice president of GM Performance and Motorsports. Adrienne asked her dad if he thought Campbell might be willing to give some career advice. “I didn't want to ask him for a job, but I wanted to ask him those same questions. I think that’s one of the most important things for anyone who wants to start a career in the industry. You've got to put yourself in a position to create momentum. We spoke for 30 minutes or so until we boarded the plane, and he was overjoyed to answer my questions.”

Photo: Quad Lock

The advice apparently worked, because upon graduation Adrienne landed a job at Chevrolet Racing, overseeing motorsport activations and managing corporate partnerships from the NASCAR contract to the driver personal services agreements. She traveled with the team, qualifying Saturday, racing Sunday, and prepping for next week’s race. Here she was mentored by both Jamie Meyer, who revived the COPO Camaro and launched Chevrolet Performance’s social media strategy, and by Herb Fishel, under whose direction the team clinched 20 NASCAR manufacturer’s championships and 12 Indy 500 wins.

Her next stop at GM was Performance Parts marketing manager—a position vacated by Meyer, who encouraged Adrienne to apply for it. “That was my dream job at the time—the holy grail. I transitioned away from being at race weekends and more toward shaping the future of the aftermarket.” This was Adrienne’s chance to work with design and engineering to develop products, then craft the storytelling to market them to an expanding pool of enthusiast tuners. And her efforts evolved Meyer’s nascent Chevrolet Performance social media presence into the most highly engaged channel at General Motors.

Photo: Alex Wong

In this position Adrienne reported to Kara Brotebeck, who was instrumental in transforming her into the professional she’s become. “It was the most incredible, collaborative, inspirational, positive manager relationship I could have possibly asked for in that role.” When asked whether she’d ever felt inhibited by any “old boys” network obstacles, her answer boiled down to “not really.” Sure, there were people who might not “get her,” but in such instances, she’d simply knuckle down and do the work, finding a way to engage those folks. 

Late in this assignment she worked with the off-road racing program campaigning Chevrolet ColoradoZR2s, which led to an assignment with GM Defense working on the (ZR2-based) Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV). While she enjoyed learning a whole new lexicon filled with elaborate acronyms, that assignment also felt like the furthest she’d strayed from her true passion. Right about then, GM’s voluntary separation program came along, and Peters decided to make the leap to consulting.

Photo: GM Defense

But first, she took a few months off chasing the F1 circuit with her fiancé, cheering on his boss’ son, Team McLaren rookie Oscar Piastri. Upon arriving home, she founded her consultancy, Ardent Strategies, to help aftermarket players tell their stories, building a client list from amongst her many SEMA contacts. A key client she met at the Melbourne, Australia, F1 race was Quad Lock, a case-based rugged phone mount optimized for harsh environments like motocross or Baja racing. These long races preclude direct spectating, so they rely heavily on content the racers can generate. Quad Lock has decided to enter the U.S. automotive market and has hence retained Adrienne as marketing director for North America. 

Photo: SEMA

In her quest to give back to an industry that’s given her so much, Adrienne served a two-year volunteer term on the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers' Council (MPMC) select committee with SEMA, and last May she attended SEMA’s DC rally. “Aftermarket leaders from all different sectors—racing, manufacturers, media—met with legislators to talk about the issues facing the aftermarket and the motorsports community. Topics included the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act (RPM Act), the REPAIR Act, legislation threatening access to outdoor recreation areas, EV mandates, and generally advocating for letting the brilliant minds of this industry find the best ways to innovate.”

We asked Peters where she hopes to be in 20 years, and she was admirably noncommittal, open to all possibilities. “What will guide me is my passion first and foremost, but government advocacy is something new that I discovered I’m very passionate about, and I've really enjoyed contributing to that.” She also thinks she has another custom-car build in her and is low-key looking for a Mercury Cyclone GT to receive her trademark sleek, menacing, murdered-out look. Whatever she ends up doing professionally, you can bet it will involve storytelling that helps expand automotive enthusiasm. After all, “the more ways we can express ourselves through cars, the better it is for the industry.” Amen.

Photos by the Peters Family Archives, Alex Wong, Quad Lock, SEMA, and Chevrolet Performance.