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Scott Lipps Knows What He Wants
“If I could drive stick, and I could drive old cars, I would just have one, because I think they’re the coolest looking cars,” Scott Lipps says wearing a black bomber jacket in the Arts District of DTLA. Founder of two talent management agencies, drummer for Courtney Love, and with a roster of celebrity friends big enough to fill a book— Lipps oozes street cred.
“The least likely car you’d probably think I would be driving is an SUV soccer-mom Mercedes,” he continued, after showing us around his 2018 Selenite Grey GLC300. It’s not that Lipps couldn’t find or couldn’t afford a classic car; that’s just not what he wanted to drive.
Lipps grew up in Long Island’s Five Towns, where everyone, he remembers, drove a Mercedes or a BMW. So perhaps it was telling that his own first car was an under-the-radar Toyota Celica.
Lipps started One Management in 2001 in New York, and in 2017 moved west and opened Lipps LA, with clients like Cardi B, Gucci Mane, Charlie Puth, and Steve Aoiki. He knows a thing or two about projecting the right image, yet when it came to selecting his own transportation, he didn’t need a flashy car to up his cool-factor.
He describes his good friend Jordan Shipenberg’s collection of vintage Porsches with admiration, but his expression changes recalling when the two stalled in the left lane of the L.I.E. during Friday Hamptons traffic. “They look great,” he says of the classic option, “but for me, I don’t want to be stranded.”
Having spent almost twenty years living in Manhattan, Lipps had barely gotten behind the wheel before moving to LA. He feels safer in an SUV and test drove the usual suspects, including Tesla and Lexus options. “I liked the bells and whistles of the Mercedes,” he said, on what sealed the deal. Introduced for the 2016 model year, the interior of this GLC is probably the most refined in its category, with a design that trickles down from the flagship S-class sedan. Especially important were the speakers: though they are sometimes used for rock-and-roll (Courtney Love has been a passenger), they are more likely to be playing Scott’s favorite podcasts, including heavy rotation of his own weekly show, in an effort to refine his interview skills.
Lipps will surely continue to admire— but probably not own— classic muscle cars. His GLC may not make quite the same statement, but for now, that is exactly what he wants.
