Automotive and gaming influencer Sonja Reid has never been one to shy away from a challenge. Known on her social channels as “Firefoxx,” Sonja is a high-performance driver, avid gamer and tech wiz all rolled into one. You know, nothing too crazy …
Reid, originally from Canada, has found a home in the “City of Angels.” Since relocating to Los Angeles, Firefoxx has kept extremely active. If she isn’t flying around a racetrack in her Nissan GT-R, she’s likely hosting a Twitch stream or competing intensely somewhere in the digital sphere.
All this hustle from Sonja has not gone without its due recognition. Back in 2016, she was named to Forbes’ gaming 30 under 30 list. A top social influencer in not one, but two different fields that tend to be dominated by men, Firefoxx is about as fierce as they come.
Fierceness aside, Sonja made some time to have a friendly chat with Playboy’s Gabriel Santiago. To hear Firefoxx’s origin story (a Phoenix rising, perhaps?), tales from Monterey Car Week and Sonoma Raceway, and what it’s like to truly follow your dreams, continue reading.
Playboy: Let’s start at the beginning—where in Canada were you born & raised?
Sonja Reid: I grew up in Sarnia, Ontario. It’s right on the border of Michigan, so I was basically a stone’s throw from the United States.
Playboy: How did you first fall in love with motorsports?
Sonja Reid: My love of motorsport is a little bit newer. When I transitioned from doing gaming content into more vlogs and automotive content, I started covering rally events. That was my first introduction to it, and now I’m a huge Formula 1 fan and I love going to different races across the U.S. But on the side of cars, I’ve always loved cars. I got my license as soon as I could. I got a car the second I could, also.
Playboy: Nice! What was your first car?
Sonja Reid: My first car was super sick. It was a 2000 Chevy Cavalier Z24, so it was the two-door model. It had a sunroof, an Autobot sticker on the back and underglow. You just know I was pretty cool …
Playboy: I can absolutely imagine it. Where did the OMGitsFirefoxx handle come from?
Sonja: The Firefoxx part was an auto generated name that placed fire and fox together with an assortment of numbers when I signed up. I wish I could remember where it started. Runescape? Neopets? Something of that era. I used it for everything back in the day. The “OMGits” part comes from when I was first creating my channel. At the time I remember seeing “OMGitsAliA,” which was a Call of Duty YouTuber and kind of loved the beginning part. So I just mashed the two together!
Playboy: How did you go into racing?
Sonja Reid: When I transitioned from gaming to automotive content, I had a bunch of opportunities to take different driving schools. I did the BMW M Performance School, the Lexus Performance Driving School, some stuff at the Porsche Experience Center and then I finally had the opportunity to do Skip Barber Racing. They do a three-day racing school program. I figured, ‘You know what? I have skills that are scattered across everywhere. It would be great to hone it in and do this three-day course.’ I ended up getting my provisional racing license. I haven’t done any official races yet, but I have a lot of fun doing it.
Playboy: What attracted you to move to California from Canada?
Sonja Reid: At the time, I was in the thick of streaming and I ended up getting booked for a lot of opportunities out in L.A. I was spending so much time back and forth that I figured, ‘Why not?’ The first time I ever went to Los Angeles was in 2011 to E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). I had some crazy opportunity through an old roommate of mine and I skipped out on work. I went negative in my bank account. I said, ‘I’m taking a chance,’ and I just fell in love with the gaming industry. I loved L.A. and knew that I would be there full-time one day.
Playboy: Let’s talk about the 2025 Corvette ZR1 reveal. What was it like to be in attendance for that?
Sonja Reid: Very, very cool. I feel like I’ve been to a handful of different releases, but the ZR1 is something special. I had no idea what the numbers were going to be like but seeing quad-digit horsepower from the factory is absolutely nuts. Being able to hear it in person was such a treat. I can’t wait for the ZR1 to come out.
Playboy: Sticking with American muscle, how about the age-old rivalry? For you, is it Fords or Chevys and why?
Sonja Reid: This should be a little more difficult for me, and I love the new Mustang, which is unbelievably cool, but my heart is with Chevy. My first car was the Autobot-sticker Cavalier, remember!? It’s stuck with me and growing up near Michigan and General Motors, that’s also in my heart. My dad’s cars when I was a kid were two 70s-era Corvettes. He was always more of a Corvette guy and I think it just stuck with me.
Playboy: Moving over to imports, do you prefer the Nissan R35 or Acura NSX?
Sonja Reid: Ugh. That’s a tough one. So tough. I own both. I will say, the older NSX is such a special car especially for the time. I love pop-ups. I know that’s a silly reason to fall in love with it, but whatever. The R35 Godzilla is just insane. There was one time I took my R35 on the track at the same time as a new NSX and I’m not going to say it almost ruined it for me, but the new NSX is just mind blowing. Overall, Godzilla is in my heart. I have to go with the R35.
Playboy: It looks like you were zooming around the track at Sonoma Raceway this year. How did that go?
Sonja Reid: Unbelievable! That is where I ended up doing the three-day Skip Barber program. So for three straight days, I was up at the crack of dawn ripping around on old Mustangs through one of the most legendary tracks. I have no complaints. It was definitely unbelievable. I’ve had the opportunity to be on a handful of different tracks but there’s something special about Sonoma. The way they use the elevation and everything is honestly such a blast.
Playboy: Can you tell me about your experience as a female working in male-focused industries like racing, automotive and gaming?
Sonja Reid: It’s definitely had its ups and downs. When I was in high school, I took every possible tech course that I could. In college, I studied computer programming because I wanted to develop video games. Being in a class of 35 kids as one of two women came with its challenges. I felt like I often wasn’t taken seriously. I remember my exam was a database exam and I did mine on shoes and fashion. Just hearing people snickering in the crowd of my own class was very disheartening. A lot of times, I wasn’t taken very seriously but I am excited to see that a lot of tides have turned. There are many more women in tech, on Twitch and in motorsport. Some of my favorite drivers are Kelsey Rowlings, Zandara Kennedy, Bri Lynch, Gabby Downing, Lia Block, Bianca Bustamante—I can keep going. There’s a lot of really amazing women out there. I feel like we’ve hopefully grown away from an ecosystem where women are pitted against each other into a more supportive one.
Interested in more female auto influencers? Read Racin’ Payton Takes Us Under the Hood
Playboy: Off the track, what was your favorite aspect of Monterey Car Week this past summer?
Sonja Reid: Monterey Car Week is so special. In general, I did a lot of carspotting. I started seeing more R35s. I feel like it’s usually a very European-manufacturer event. There’s Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and hypercars but I would love to see a little more JDM out there. Other than that, the food was obviously incredible. It was also my first time driving on 17 Mile Drive. That was breathtaking. Simply unbelievable.
Playboy: Are there any releases you’re looking forward to in the next year? If not, anything classic on your radar at this time?
Sonja Reid: With my dad’s love of old Corvettes, I feel like I’ve always had an itch to pick up an early ‘70s Corvette. But as far as releases go, I’ve had my eyes on the Polestar Precept for a long time. I think it’s going to come to life as the Polestar 5. It is super ambitious. It looks badass and super futuristic. It’s sustainable. It uses PET bottles, flax fiber and a bunch of other really cool stuff. It just looks wild and I’ve been looking forward to that for a long time.
Playboy: What’s your favorite form of content to create?
Sonja Reid: I’m so torn because I love different facets of it for different reasons. I love any opportunity I get to be on-camera and share excitement about a car. Anything in that realm, if I get an opportunity to do it, it’s definitely at the top for me. Live-streaming since 2013, it’s always in my heart. I just started live-streaming again for the first time in a year and a half. I definitely missed it and the live aspect, especially hanging out with the community.
Playboy: Does Firefoxx get more adrenaline from racing or streaming?
Sonja Reid: There is something about being clicked-in and in your element on a livestream, but after I did racing school in Sonoma, I think I almost went somewhere else. I was outside of my body. By three or four laps in, it just felt like nothing I’ve experienced before. You can’t think of anything else—as soon as an external thought entered my head, I had to immediately push it out and think of where I needed to be for the next corner, for what’s coming up, where I should brake, looking for cues and landmarks. You can’t think of anything else. That’s something I had just experienced for the first time. That’s the top of the world for me.
Playboy: I see that you’re a budding actress! Any upcoming projects with you that we should be on the lookout for?
Sonja Reid: I don’t think I have anything super crazy coming out, but if you want to follow my adventures on Instagram (@omgitsfirefoxx), I’m always announcing stuff and putting out car content. If I have something big coming up, that’s where you’ll hear it.
Playboy: Lastly, what does “a day in the life of Sonja Reid aka Firefoxx” look like right now?
Sonja Reid: It varies so, so heavily. Right now, I’m very project-to-project based. So for Monterey Car Week, I was working with Polestar and it was a handful of days non-stop filming, walking around, driving up there and driving back. As soon as I get back home, I am crashing hard and playing an unhealthy amount of League of Legends, and then trying to balance it out again by catching up on emails. Rinse and repeat until the next project!
