Three Gay Guys Talking Cars

Three Gay Guys Talking Cars

After more than 100 episodes, Car-Pinionated quietly puts queer into gear. Every week since the fall of 2022, Doug Stewart has hosted an online conversation about “cars, the car industry and driving in general.”

Sometimes it’s with an expert from Kelley Blue Book, or AAA, or Consumer Reports Auto Test Center, colloquially known as Test Track, in East Haddam, on the Colchester town line.

Stewart has also chatted with the owner of a car dealer in Vernon about tariffs and a maternity nurse from Lawrence and Memorial Hospital about infant car seats.

He even sat down with Sen. Richard Blumenthal at the Hartford TV studio where he works as FOX61’s digital executive producer. No surprise, they talked about cars; specifically, they discussed a bill to ensure used cars that have been recalled cannot be sold without first being repaired.

But most often, Stewart’s weekly show features two longtime friends: Glenn Packman of Fairfield County and writer Geoff Buchholz of Chicago. Their program is called Car-Pinionated and appears on the streaming channels of TEGNA-owned TV stations in Connecticut, Buffalo and Harrisburg, as well as on FOX61’s YouTube channel.

Nary an episode goes by without a lot of laughter amid the banter.

“The C3 Corvette, the most uncomfortable car to make out in, ever,” quipped Packman. “You need to get extremely creative!”

It’s a true story, and what’s also true—but never stated—is that Packman was talking about attempting to make out with a boyfriend.

Three years and more than one hundred episodes later, these three motorheads generally don’t talk about that other thing they all have in common, in addition to a love of cars, trucks, and SUVs; Each one is an out, gay man.

“We don’t talk about that kind of thing,” Packman told CT Voice, and he made clear the show has never been advertised as “three gay guys talking about cars.”

“At the end of the day, car fanatics are car fanatics,” said Packman. Even so, he said he has literally been confronted by straight men, demanding he prove his automotive aptitude.

“I’ve had people who’ve just been shocked, almost dismayed, if you will, over the fact that I know cars,” he said. “A rather rough around the edges, pickup-driving, hunting on the weekend, camouflage-wearing friend of a friend once almost got in my face about the fact that I said that I know cars,” recalled Packman. “And he literally just rapid-fired me questions about the car market, and I answered all of them promptly. And when he was done, he just sort of sized me up, and he said, and I quote, ‘Huh!’”

“I kind of wanted to say to him, ‘Am I your first gay?’”

Packman and his husband, Bill, have been together 25 years this fall. He is a licensed and certified residential real estate appraiser and improv comedy performer in New York City.

He’s known Stewart even longer; they met in 1987 at a restaurant in East Windsor where at that time Packman waited tables. He couldn’t recall the exact year—Stewart did—but he did remember that it was after purchasing his first new car, a 1986 Volkswagen Golf, noting: “Boy, did I love that car!”

And you can probably guess what topic led to their 38-year-long friendship.

“You don’t meet lots of people who are really up on car talk,” said Packman. “So, when you do, it’s kind of refreshing to sort of let the fun gates loose and talk a lot about cars.”

He often leans into his improv background for off-the-cuff observations that crack up his co-hosts.

“I’ve always felt like Toyota’s design language is like the K-Tel record,” he said in a recent episode. “All these great artists mashed together on one album!” Packman also coined a new term for what Buchholz described as SUVs aimed at attracting “the cool dad.”

“There’s a niche in the market that I’m going to call, ‘The Chariots of the Dads,’” he said.

To describe Stewart, Packman didn’t hold back.

“Doug is a golden retriever,” he said. “Because he is that affable, lovable, friendly, decent kind-hearted man on so many different levels. I can never be there enough for him because I’m just way more selfish and more like a diva, but he’s just an all-around terrific person.”

What matters most about their show, he said, is how Stewart and his co-hosts treat other opinions.
“On Car-Pinionated, yes, it’s our opinions, but yours matter, too, and we want to hear about them, and nobody’s wrong here,” said Packman. “That’s the poison that is undoing our society and I think Car-Pinionated is one tiny little step away from that. If you have a differing opinion, we’re never going to say, ‘Well, you’re a jerk.’”

He offered this example: “We repeatedly bashed the [Tesla] Cybertruck on the show. But if somebody stepped forward and said, ‘I drive one of these things, and here’s the reasons why I love it,’ I would definitely want to hear about this. It’s contrary to everything I think and believe, but I still want to hear about it,” he said. “And that’s the heart of the show.”

—Dawn Ennis