Sera Trimble drove backward down a hill in Licorice Pizza and flipped into a tight spot in Bullet Train. She’s screeched tires in Transformers and American Pie and in TV shows such as Euphoria, Star Trek: Picard, and Modern Family. Sienna Miller used Trimble as her stunt double in American Woman; Christina Applegate did, too, in Dead to Me.
Remember those Subaru ads with the golden retrievers “driving”? That was Trimble, wedged under the steering column working the pedals. She’s also done commercials for Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz.
Trimble, 40, grew up in Seattle before moving to Los Angeles. She’s owned an Acura TL, a BMW M3, an Alfa Romeo—even a jacked-up yellow 1982 Toyota 4x4. Her signature car is the 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera she bought in 2015.
The 911 in Guards Red comes from the “G-Series” platform, which means it originally left the Porsche factory with big impact bumpers and bellows in the front and rear. Now the coupe has a motorsports-oriented look, with a roll bar, tow hooks, a front-mounted oil cooler, and black trim throughout. It’s powered by a 3.2 liter flat-six engine and 915 transmission—perfect for Trimble’s predilection for fast driving through California’s desert canyons. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
When did you get your first Porsche?
The very first one I had was a Porsche Cayman GTS. I thought that car was beautiful. But honestly, I didn’t like being seen in it. It was just not me. It felt a little cliché.
How so?
I’ve just tried for so long in my career to be the person that is really good at what they do and is called on because people respect you and your talent. It was a little too new, a little too flashy. It was a beautiful car, and it drove so well, but I would canyon-drive that thing on weekends at 6 a.m., and then I would park it at 9 a.m. and not use it again for two weeks.
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So how did you land on the ’86 911 Carrera?
I had been talking to my friend Dorian Valenzuela [founder and owner of DV Mechanics, a full-service Porsche and Alfa Romeo shop]. Dorian said, “There’s something about being in an older Porsche, where everyone else you’re driving with has a similar-era car. You’re all experiencing the same stuff. That’s the fun about it.” He was like, “Get rid of that new s—.”
How did you find this one?
Dorian and I had been looking around. We had heard about this one in the valley, pretty good for the price range. It had a bunch of style modifications on it. The hood was a black [vinyl] wrap; the wheels weren’t quite what I wanted for my car. But I knew I could change those.
Any mechanical upgrades?
One of the first things I had my mechanic do was rebuild the transmission. Because I had a very hard time shifting into second. It had only three dog teeth left on first gear. Before I rebuilt it, I was shifting it from first to third everywhere. And I’m like, “I just hate this.” Cuz if I can’t go fast enough to shift it into third, I just look like a person who can’t shift a car.
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I put a limited slip differential in it because I drove Joey Seely’s “Project Nasty” 911 on Chuckwalla [Raceway, in Southern California] for a track day, and it was the most fun experience I had driving a car on track ever. I loved the weight transfer of it in the rear. My car had been used as an autocross [timed racing competition] car. So the whole thing was stripped. I still to this day do not have a wiper fluid reservoir.
That all sounds expensive.
The first shop visit was seven grand. That was painful.
Tell me how you use it. Are you driving it to set?
Very rarely. I drive my Ford Fiesta ST to set. Ha! What you drive to set in Hollywood is kind of a flex.
That was why I didn’t feel comfortable in the Cayman. If you show up and the producer is driving an Audi S4, which they were 10 years ago, and I’m pulling up in a sports car, it’s just like, “Uh-oh, maybe we pay the drivers too much.”
I’m just not that person. Granted there is the exact opposite of me in the industry. Mr. Drives His Ferrari to Work Every Day.
So, how do you use the red Porsche?
As a weekend canyon-driving car. It’s just loud and smelly and drives great. I mean, it drives awful on any streets that have bumps. But as soon as you get out where there’s no bumps, it’s a dream.
Now that it’s personalized, the entire front of it has rock chips. I don’t polish it when I park. I leave it dirty and beat, and it smells like exhaust. I love it. Me pulling up at stoplights in this red car that goes roarrrrr, and my windows are down, and it stinks—that’s me.
How did you get into the stunt business?
I used to be a hotel valet in Seattle. It was a college job. I had just dropped out of art school. After years of that, I was like, “OK, this is fun. I like it.” And then this car commercial crew stayed at my hotel. I think I was like 23, 24.
The director and producers were doing pre-production there for a week or so. And they’re just watching me whip cars in and out of this circle, parallel parking on the sides. It was a small hotel, so only one valet would work the morning shift, which I did most of the time. And so they were like, “Sera, have you ever thought of driving cars for a living?” And I’m like, “Well, I’m technically driving for a living today.”
They said, “We mean on commercials and TV and stuff. You probably have to move to LA, but there’s not a lot of women who are really good at it. And the ones we know don’t look like you—you have a very marketable look. You could stunt-double half-Asian ladies or Hispanic ladies. You could be White. You’re kind of ambiguous.” None of this made sense to me. But I’m like, “Cool!”
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And they hired you that weekend to work on the commercial, right?
I paid another valet to cover my shift, which was the best $40 investment my whole life—better than that art school that I dropped out of, which now just gives me a really cool-looking Instagram. I moved to LA six months later.
The Other Stars of “How’d You Get That Car?”
Vintage autos as unique as the women who collect them
Adri Law | 1965 Ford Ranchero
A photographer by trade, Law co-founded the annual Paradise Road Show in Palm Springs, Calif., in 2016 to celebrate car and motorcycle classics from 1976 and earlier. She started her collecting journey with an ex-boyfriend. “He knew how to work on cars; his dad knew how to work on cars. So I had someone to guide me through that process. That deserves credit, for sure.” Her half-car, half-truck Ford Ranchero is less common than its famous cousin, the Chevrolet El Camino, and even fewer are painted in a Champagne gold like this. “There was a lot of love and energy and money put into this car,” Law says. “It had a new BluePrint 302 V8 motor in it, power steering, vintage air. That alone is so massive.”
Caroline Cassini | 1948 MG TC
Collecting cars runs in the family of Cassini, US general manager for the Market by Bonhams. She bonded over old, rare models with her father when she was young. “I was an only child, so I didn’t have any brothers to go to the shows with my dad,” she says. “But I always adored them.” World War II-era TCs are fun to drive, but they require some expertise to manage the gearbox and wooden brakes. They’re also right-hand drive. And, Cassini says, TCs are relatively inexpensive for the design and engineering you get. “But you never see them this well done, because to put what someone put into this to make it look and drive the way it is, it’s more than probably what the car is worth.”
Inii King | 1992 Fiat Panda 4X4
When she was growing up in Korea, King, co-founder and chief creative officer of branding agency King & Partners, didn’t have access to much car culture. “Most people drove Hyundai,” she says. “If you’re middle class, everyone drives a Sonata. If you’re rich, you drive the Grandeur.” She bought this Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed economy car a year ago. With a dark green body, cream-white wheels, wooden steering wheel, and a top speed of less than 80 mph, it’s cute enough to endear it to almost anyone. But the wide-open dashboard, flat floors, and foldable back bench-seat are supremely practical. “The design is perfect to me in terms of proportion,” she says. “I have a special preference for cars that have clean, straight lines. I just hate curvy cars.”
