At 16, Chloe Stuart races cars, restores classics and builds her own automotive empire. Naturally, she has no plans to slow down.
While most teenagers spend their weekends scrolling through TikTok, Chloe Stuart is out racing cars, working in garages and studying race data.
At just 16, the Gauteng-born driver has already made motorsport history. She is the youngest female driver ever to win a Formula Vee title and the first woman in over 50 years to do so. But racing is just one part of her journey. Chloe is also starting a classic-car business, getting ready to launch her own fragrance and building a career around her true passions.
Chloe’s love for cars began early. At just 18 months, she was driving a battery-powered car, and by age seven, she was racing karts with support from her father Barry, a former endurance kart racer.
After that, things picked up speed. Chloe advanced through different karting classes, then moved into Formula M. There, she won the Class C Championship, led the Index of Performance and was named Formula M Driver of the Year.
Then came Formula Vee.
Switching from karts to single-seaters brought faster cars, tougher competition and less room for mistakes. Chloe was the youngest and the only woman on the grid, but she didn’t let that hold her back. She ended her first season as Rookie Champion.
Since then, she has represented South Africa internationally, competed in shifter karting and joined Pablo Clark Racing as a development driver. In 2025, she became the first woman to win a BMW M-Performance race in Class F before progressing to Class E. She is now competing in Class D of the BMW M-Performance NA Cup.
But take away the racing suit and Chloe’s automotive ambitions don’t disappear.
In 2024, Chloe started Classic Cars by Chloe, a restoration business focused on finding old classics and bringing them back to life. The business is practical, too. Since motorsport is expensive, Chloe and her dad wanted a way to earn money that would also fit with her racing schedule.
And her idea of a “project car” is anything but ordinary.
There’s a BMW 633CSi, a rare left-hand-drive example brought to South Africa. A BMW E30 Coupe is being stripped down for racing. A Rover P4 90 is being coaxed back to life. Then there’s the LemonGhia, a battered Karmann Ghia shell discovered beneath ladders and junk in a Johannesburg CBD warehouse, which is being transformed into a Nissan-engined endurance racer.
Most people would see rust. Chloe sees potential.
Her approach is to begin with affordable classics, learn from each project, gain experience and eventually move on to the collector cars that car enthusiasts dream about. She’s also looking into project shares, so supporters can join in on certain builds.
It’s a surprisingly entrepreneurial path for someone still in school, but Chloe’s idea of a typical teenager is clearly unique.
Outside the garage, Chloe trains in CrossFit, has a brown belt in Karate and spends hours learning about the technical side of racing, including tyre wear, aerodynamics, telemetry and race footage.
As if cars, racing and restoration weren’t enough, Chloe is also getting ready to launch her first fragrance, Racer Girl.
This mix is what makes Chloe’s story so compelling. She isn’t just breaking barriers in a traditionally male-dominated sport. She’s building an entire world around her passion, turning racing into a career, classics into a business and her personality into a brand.
The long-term goal is international competition. For now, though, there are races to win, classics to rescue and an automotive empire to build.
At 16, Chloe Stuart is already in the driver’s seat. And she doesn’t look remotely interested in hitting the brakes.