‘Tricked Out Tractors’ star Tylor Cartin: I’m a girly girl who loves engines

Tylor Cartin is equally at home getting elbow deep in an engine as she is getting pampered in a beauty salon.

The 24-year-old mechanic from Claudy in Co Londonderry said: “When I was growing up my friends were into hair and beauty and make-up, I was into mechanics.

“But I’m also a complete girly girl – getting my hair and make-up and nails done.

“People think it’s two completely different worlds but there’s no reason why you can’t be into both.

“The motor world is amazing, it’s such an interesting world when you get into, I think everyone should know a wee bit.

“They say it’s a man’s world but I can genuinely say hand on heart that I’ve seen as many men in that situation where the can’t change a tyre, they can’t even pump up a tyre.

“Even the fact that men should know how to do that is a stereotype. It’s the same as a woman, it depends on your background, if you’ve been taught that growing up.

“I’ve met about two women in the trade but it’s getting better.”

Tylor is one of the stars of new BBC NI programme ‘Tricked Out Tractors’ which starts tonight.

She is joined by restoration guru Stephen Lennon from Loughbrickland, Co Down, and machinery expert Darren Bailey from Portlaoise.

Together the trio work on complicated tractor builds, ground up restorations, and cutting edge designs.

Tylor said: “It was the best craic, every minute of it. Half the time you didn’t even realise the cameras were there, we forgot ourselves half the time.

“I’m like a sponge, I just love picking up all this new stuff. It’s amazing the stuff I learnt over the whole show.

“I liked working on Darren’s tractor, it had a lorry engine on it. So to have a mix between that and the tractor, that was amazing and it was all custom made and I’m really into that.

“Even the tractor pulling sport itself, there’s stuff nobody knows unless you do the actual taking part. It was really interesting.”

She added: “My history is with cars, but any engine – I would just throw myself at it, I would never turn away a challenge. The common principles of engines are all the same, you can’t go too far wrong there.

“My daddy was always big into his cars and lorries, I was reared in the shed beside him, picking up the tips and curse words.”

Tylor’s father Micky is a lorry driver who does all his own mechanical work.

She said: “Whenever I said about being a mechanic, my daddy said, ‘your back will be broke and your head will be fried’. He wasn’t trying to put me off, he was just speaking from experience.

“I absolutely love it. Yes, it’s a very male dominated profession, but I have had no hassle in any way because I’m female, or anybody giving my grief about it. Everybody has been so encouraging.”

Tylor said she was used to being in male company: “Whenever I went to tech in Nutt’s Corner, I was, bar the dinner lady, the only girl in the whole tech. Anytime I went for my lunch, the dinner lady came in and sat with me.

“I certainly didn’t find it intimidating, but it took the boys a long time to get used to me. They saw a girl, and would think, ‘can we curse in front of her?’

“They didn’t know what way to take me. However now, people are so accepting of a woman in the trade, which is great.”

Tylor’s boyfriend Jamie is a contractor who works with heavy machinery.

She said: “He’s machinery mad, the bigger the better. We’ve a wild lot in common. I tell him he’s lucky because most girls wouldn’t want to go with him to shift a digger.”

Series producer Zoe McGivern from Green Inc said: “We were looking at the rural world and saw that this was a really big thing, people were putting a lot of money into their tractors, restoring old tractors or blinging out new tractors. It’s not the case that tractors are only for farmers, we’ve seen a wide range or people who own tractors.

She continued: “In terms of the casting we set out contacting a lot of the trade magazines, getting tips on who to speak to.

“We went out and met a few people. Our guys stood out. They all knew their stuff really well, they had big personalities, I knew they’d get on like a house on fire. They were an absolute pleasure to work with.

“Tylor is a master mechanic, she knows her stuff inside out, Stephen has got so much experience with the vintage stuff, restoring classic tractors, Darren is our machinery specialist, he is the man with all the contacts, he’ll find any part you need. They make the perfect team.”

Of the three-part series she said: “While there’s tractors at the heart, it’s also a makeover series – the type of thing that anyone can enjoy.”

The series, filmed mainly before current Covid-19 restrictions, begins on BBC One Northern Ireland tonight at 7.35pm.

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