Jeremy Taunton was six years old the first time he fell in love with a car. A 1935 Jaguar his father owned that did not run. He would climb behind the wheel and race the Monte Carlo Rally in his head. The car never moved. The feeling never left.
He left London in 1969 for Milan, spending five years as a fashion photographer shooting women comfortable in their skin, confident in who they were. On the side he brokered classic Ferraris to collectors in England, including a short wheelbase Berlinetta and a 512M that had raced at Le Mans. He was equally at home in both worlds: beauty, precision, and things built to move people. Those Milan years eventually became his first novel, Out of Focus.
Film pulled him next. New York, then Los Angeles, and fifteen years working across independent films, commercials, and music videos. He wrote screenplays. Some were optioned. None reached the screen. When the gaps between projects grew too long he walked into a Honda showroom and started selling cars. He turned out to be exceptionally good at it. He became a top producer, moved into management, and built a reputation as one of the more forward-thinking voices in retail automotive operations, seeing what digital was about to do to the industry years before most retailers were willing to look. He built strategies around it. And from inside that showroom he watched the same systems getting smarter and faster while still failing women at every turn.
One afternoon a customer walked out of the finance office in tears, having been pressured into thousands of dollars of warranties and add-ons she never wanted. Jeremy never saw her again. He has not stopped thinking about her since.
That moment planted a seed. In 2009 he co-founded MotoCarma with a singular conviction: women deserved a fundamentally different car buying experience and someone had to build it. Seventeen years of building, testing, pivoting, and refusing to let go. Every iteration sharpening the vision. Every setback strengthening the resolve. Until DriveHer.
Woven through all of it was his greatest success. Forty years of marriage to Jean, who has since passed. But she guides him still. He feels her in this work, in every decision, making sure DriveHer carries the kind of integrity and warmth she embodied. The voice the industry has spent a hundred years refusing to hear.
Men have felt empowered behind the wheel for a century. It is time women felt the same. That is not just a mission for Jeremy. It is personal.