As Detroit’s struggles prove, life is a fight for resources. If you can’t get enough resources, you die. Well, in Motown’s case, you receive massive taxpayer subsidies and then you die. Taking it down to the personal level, the resources needed for survival form what Abraham Maslow called “a hierarchy of needs.” The most basic of these are lumped together: air, water, food and sex. Yup, sex is at the bottom of the pyramid. So it’s no wonder that exhibitors at The North American International Show (NAIAS) pay young, attractive females to pose next to their vehicles. It appeals to the mostly male jobbing journos’ most basic needs (after securing shrimp), drawing their attention to the automakers’ vehicles. It’s effective, morally reprehensible and now, self-defeating.
The worldwide auto industry is undergoing a major makeover. For the last few years, government regulation, economics, media fashion and (arguably) public opinion have led to the de-Luztification of the business. In other words, the horsepower uber alles halo cars worshiped by GM’s septuagenarian head of product development as a young man are no longer the sine qua non of vehicular excellence. These days, environmental responsibility is the name of the game.
High gas prices or low, good times or bad, green is the new black. Imagine this year’s don’t call it The Detroit Auto Show without the new Toyota Prius and Honda Insight hybrids vying for primacy. Today’s auto shows are all about the mpgs and alt power. To wit: would NAIAS have welcomed former coach-builder (i.e. Mercedes SL and BMW 8-Series reskinner) Henrik Fisker on center stage if his sports sedan holstered a V12 engine rather than a hybrid “Q-Drive”? Clearly not.
Sure, sheetmetal queens like the Fisker Karma still get attention, regardless of their fuel efficiency. But again, these days, even the sleekest of the sleek are swathed in the mantle of federally-mandated planet protection. If the Cadillac Converj concept car has an engine underneath its stunning creases– which I highly doubt– it’s supposed to be GM’s forthcoming if not theoretical Voltec electric – gas hybrid powerplant.
“Time was the big auto show in Detroit was all about glamorous gas guzzlers on turntables,” NPR’s intro to an interview with Car Czar Bob Lutz interview pronounces. “and models pointing suggestively at fins and fenders. Not this year…”
Yes, this year. While the gas guzzlers are conspicuous by their absence, the booth babes are still there, undermining the automakers’ credibility. The media talk about NAIAS’ new found “austerity” and “de-glamorization.” The shrimp may be smaller, but the booth babes’ dresses are just as tight and revealing. And their presence reveals the truth about these taxpayer-funded cutbacks: the carmakers still don’t “get it.”
While I’m no fan of political correctness (hence the name of the website), the debate over the morality of using women to sell goods and services was fought over forty years ago. The “sexual objectification” of women was roundly, stridently and publicly denounced. The practice was defeated. Depicting women as mindless eye candy more-or-less whoring for a product joined racial stereotyping as one of those things you just don’t do.
In practice, society reached a compromise: women can be objects of sexual desire in sexual situations. A flexible concept to be sure, but easy enough to identify. Victoria’s Secret models, OK. Booth babes, no. (Beauty pageants, as always, lost in the middle.) In other words, draping nubile women over automobiles is a throwback to– and a carry-over from– an earlier, less sensitive time.
Whether they’re hawking EVs or SUVs (God forbid), booth babery illustrates and symbolizes the auto industry’s arrogant refusal to adapt to society’s needs. Well, norms.
As I’ve pointed out in previous years, booth babes are also self-defeating. They intimidate the average showgoer and discourage female attendance (for obvious reasons). By adorning cars with attractive girls who know little to nothing about the vehicle nearby, women who don’t work for the company producing the product, the manufacturer inhibits serious discussions about the car itself. In fact, the carmaker is showing an active disregard for anything other than the vehicles’ surface.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that TTAC fell into this same trap with a spate of cheerleader pictures, whose ironic intent– illustrating the automotive media’s attempt to “sex up” bad news– offended our audience. Commentators rightly pointed-out that the tits and ass snaps had nothing to do with TTAC’s core mission. It lowered the site’s tone and robbed us of the one thing we depend on for survival: our reputation. We admitted our mistake, ceased the practice and moved on.
It’s time for the “serious” car shows to lose the titillation. Not because it isn’t a welcome distraction from the hype, hot air and hypocrisy that surrounds the event. But because it is.
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I hardly think the “booth babes” are scaring away people from the Lambo display.
It would have been refreshing had the Big 3 had some real employees stand next to their vehicles instead of models. Imagine a passionate line worker standing next to the vehicle he/she builds, extolling the virtues. Of course, the UAW would have required a re-write of the labor agreement and probably double time and free food, so never mind..
From the pictures that I saw on another site, the booth babes at the Detroit Auto Show seemed rather classy to me. They were wearing very nice evening dresses, it’s not like these were HIN women who barely have any clothes on.
On a side note: Leave it to the Italians to bring the goods in terms of booth babes ;)
Viceroy_Fizzlebottom :
I think you missed the point.
Quote dwford: “It would have been refreshing had the Big 3 had some real employees stand next to their vehicles instead of models. Imagine a passionate line worker standing next to the vehicle he/she builds, extolling the virtues. Of course, the UAW would have required a re-write of the labor agreement and probably double time and free food, so never mind..”
I think Ford tried this a few years ago…they had Engineers, Plant folks and R&D Staff walking around in white lab coats with name tags…I thought it was a good idea but I guess they didn’t continue the practice for one reason or another.
The sexiest booth babe I have ever encountered ran the Nissan GT-R exhibit last year in Detroit… whether she had just memorized the speech, or knew her stuff, she went into great detail about Godzilla’s heritage and future. To say I was smitten, is an understatement. And she was wearing the classiest 3 piece business suit in COBO hall
No one can accuse TTAC of glossing over even the most mundane aspects of the auto industry. It is now official, if it wasn’t before.
“These days, environmental responsibility is the name of the game.”
As evidenced by the Prius clogged Toyota Dealerships and US ports.
I think you are making something of nothing, the audience appreciates it, mostly, and the girls are receiving a paycheck for dressing in evening wear or something no more revealing than they might wear on a hot summer day. Certainly, some auto shows have lower standards for a dress codes, but not the big glitzy international shows.
I submit that it may actually be more cost effective to have these young models adorn the cars rahter than execs from automakers. I also suspect that most of my auto loving peers enjoy the booth babes very much.
Robert Farago wrote:
“It lowered the site’s tone and robbed us of the one thing we depend on for survival: our reputation.”
The booth babes are there because they appeal to the media whores that can be influenced to write positive stories about the automakers with free shrimp, free beer, free test drives of new models, and advertising dollars.
The babes at the Lamborghini booth make sense because shallow superficial people are attracted to other equally shallow and superficial people. If it wasn’t for single and divorced doctors and lawyers companies like Porsche wouldn’t have a customer base.
Hey, remember the time you wrote an article against the practice of using attractive women as a marketing tool and then put a clickable image of attractive women twice in the same article?
“The “sexual objectification” of women was roundly, stridently and publicly denounced. The practice was defeated. Depicting women as mindless eye candy more-or-less whoring for a product joined racial stereotyping as one of those things you just don’t do.”
Hm. Seems that someone forgot to mention this to the guys who organize SEMA.
I love the pics of the booth babes, but in real life situations I generally don’t want to see cleavage, etc. It’s too much effort not to stare. I hate to say it, but it is difficult to believe that car shows haven’t really gotten past this yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGZ42g0kR28
Slare :
As I’ve said, mea culpa. Although I think it’s appropriate to use the autoblog image here.
It’s not exclusive to the auto industry. At any trade show you are going to see T&A promotional people. I was at a building industry trade show and you wouldn’t believe the women hawking sump pumps and aluminum siding.
And lest you think this is only the case in male-dominated industries, have you ever seen the women at a fashion industry event?!
etardedSparks :
And lest you think this is only the case in male-dominated industries, have you ever seen the women at a fashion industry event?!
I do think it’s the case of male-dominated industries appealing to their customers’ basest instincts. And a fashion event is one of those places where society says it’s OK to sex it up. And rightly so.
They intimidate the average showgoer and discourage female attendance (for obvious reasons).
While I wholeheartedly agree with the larger point – which I take to be that if you’re still putting out cookies just so Santa shows, you’re living in the past – I would make the following observations…
Do the demographics on auto show attendees. Last time I checked, overwhelmingly a “boy’s day out”.
Journos are (relatively) underpaid, they live for the fringes. Last journo I hung with took full advantage.
Do you really think that anybody that buys an Xcalade really gives two good flyin’s about this year’s new grill? Really? They wanna see some chrome and some babes. It’s sorta like going to Hooters. With cars. That’s enough ‘naughtiness’ for some folks.
(God, how I wish I wasn’t a very jaded bastard sometimes, life would be so much simpler…)
I humbly submit that anybody who really lives cars knows everything that will happen at the DET show long before the show happens. You saw the cars in advance. Do a coupla concepts that will be completely cluster-f’d before they hit the showrooms really matter?
Those who are really into mods might slum it in LV for the aftermarket hoochie-fest for a couple of days. Lots of Asian hotties. Way too much floor space to traverse. Way too many purveyors of 30″ dopeman-wheel-du-jour.
Those who actually care about the leading/bleeding edge are at PRI, where those who supply almost everybody everything are. Almost no booth ‘tang. Some of the small fry who sell directly will have some, but mostly just a meet-n-greet with people who matter.
Micro point: As far as scaring off female attendees, it really depends on whether your significant other is limited to playing for one team.
Just a thought…
I often hang out on French and Italian web car mags, and they have special sections for booth babes galleries. Different place, different attitude. I agree with the substance of the article, but let’s not forget that cars are powerful phallic symbols, and displays of wealth, all serving the atavistic goal of mating more. Booth babes are a part of this just like horsepower is.
And to relate to Jonny’s entry about what kids want, young males are at a stage where they need to establish themselves and spread their seeds, thus the inflated infatuation for powerful cars….
I don’t really care about the text of this article or the comments above, I just want to say: what a great photo!
I disagree. Cars are sexy and, consiously or subconciously, we attach sex to cars because of what they have represented since you were old enough to want a license: freedom. Freedom to go out, full of hormones, and meet girls. The booth babes just bring the IDEA that a car is sexy together with the REALITY that a car is sexy. Almost all of lifes indulgances come back to sex: chocolate – what does good chocolate remind you of? sex. Alcohol – makes it easier to have sex. Fast cars – sex. I personally, do my best to buy ‘practical’ cars, but I cannot buy a box on wheels, I want something sexy, that I can confidently use to get to my end goal of having sex with attractive woemen. As a commenter said above, SEMA is notorious for its booth babes, but to me, a girl standing infront of a display of exhausts or giant rims isn’t sexy, but a girl draped over an entire package…a car, is sexy.
I do totally agree wtih your comment that having these girls as ornaments instead of educated instruments of sales, does hurt the appeal. If the girl draped across the Lambo knew some specs about the car…that would a complete package make.
Can you estimate the percentage of booth workers that were female? As long as the clothing is professional, and there is some attempt at gender equality, I’m OK with having a pretty face at the booth. That’s not what I’m looking at when I go to car shows anyway.
Also, hiring local talent must be cheaper than paying an engineer to work a booth (which would also require hotel and airfare costs). And frankly, most engineers (that I know) aren’t much to look at or too good with people.
Unfortunately, car companies are selling an image as much as they’re selling anything else. And yes, it’s all superficial. But that’s what a car show is. It’s a show.
If it wasn’t for single and divorced doctors and lawyers companies like Porsche wouldn’t have a customer base.
@UstaBee,
Hey now. Maybe in LA. Most of my clientele (especially the UberBeetleEvo drivers) are happily married. Sure, the guy with the 951 is prolly single, but he’s 25-30 and likes to go fast.
How does a booth babe intimidate a show go-er? Apart from possibly an over hyped 40 year old virgin who’ll get excited over anything female and smiling at him, (i guess thats why they coral the lambo girls in every year for their own safety!), most are pretty articulate, (apart from one on the Chrysler stand last year) but they know their stuff as that is what they are paid to do at the shows. I’m sure they’d be offended by your comments, did you think of them with all the technical details they are paid to learn and help provide you with. Times have changed the girls are dressed generally more professionally and to a higher level of style and taste than of yester year (yes the maufacturers do understand i guess) but where do they reduce female attendees at shows? Every motor show i’ve been to there are a good mix of folks there, yes you’ll always get more blokes turning up but i’ve never heard of women not turning up because of the designer dressed girls at the ferrari or lambo stand. How does their reduction compare to overall attendance figures, is there are general reduction in attendances? I’d understand more with women not wanting to take a family out to a show, i’ve done it with a stroller and its no fun playing ankle hockey with a bugaboo through the teaming crowds.
RF: I didn’t mean to imply I disagree with your point, I concur. However, I find it somewhat ironic that women market to women with the same technique.
As for car shows, or any other trade show, if I’m there due to a genuine interest in the products, I’d much prefer talking to the engineer who designed it than a rent-a-babe who memorized a marketing speech.
Specific to auto shows, they are a rather schizophrenic event – half an exclusive, industry-only, self-congratulatory love in; and half a public drool-fest which has a lot in common with the look-but-dont-touch policies of your average “gentleman’s club.”
The “product specialists” on most displays are well clad. Those on the Ford display look like they stepped out of an Orvis catalog. The girls on the Lambo display are the exception rather than the rule.
Would you rather drive a Ferrari for a day or have one of those booth babes for 1 night? Between you and me, I’ll take the Ferrari.
I guess growing up in Montreal, I’m blasé about “babes”…
Michael Karesh :
With all due respect Michael (I love that expression), perhaps that’s your own personal perspective. Click here for another.
But, the dealers don’t learn either. Most dealer advertising is in the sports section of your local paper and yet, 70% of all auto buying decisions are made, or influenced, by ladies.
How dare car companies use beautiful, young women to show off their beautiful cars and hand out brochures! We need ugly women too! Just yesterday I saw a “woman” driving a PT Cruiser that had man hating stickers on her bumper. She would be perfect to bring in equality to car shows! (wink wink)
No really, putting a beautiful woman next to car is not “whoring” her. The truth is that beauty sells and that ugly people hate to admit it. Men are usually the ones that want to buy new cars for other then just for getting from point A to B. So the two just go together.
Plus, my wife has no problem with beautiful, young women at car shows. I have never once heard her once say that she hates car shows because of them (she just hates my obsession with cars… lol).
RF,
The GF now wants to go to the DET autoshow. This is ALL your fault.
Ugh.
austinseven :
January 13th, 2009 at 9:51 am
But, the dealers don’t learn either. Most dealer advertising is in the sports section of your local paper and yet, 70% of all auto buying decisions are made, or influenced, by ladies.
Yes, I’ll agree with the final decision most of the time (as no man can be happy if his woman is not), however men are the ones that generally start the process. No woman I know looks at a car the same way that my buddies do. I’m going to spend thousands of dollars lifting a Jeep this year, and my wife doesn’t get it. The only thing that she will like about it is getting to be scene riding with me in it afterwards. Maybe too getting to drive it off-road.
Screw political correctness
Obviously trade shows like SEMA that devolve into cheap “gentleman’s clubs” (I’m intentionally not using the baser name for such establishments) on a convention center floor are demeaning, and actually make me less likely to attend. I was at the last convention in the Las Vegas convention center before SEMA this year, work for an automotive supplier, and still decided to get the hell out of town before that whole vibe got ramped up (Vegas is crass enough anyway on its own).
However, female presenters, like the young ladies in the Maserati booth this year, are appropriate. If they actually make a factual presentation, like the previous commenter mentioned with the GT-R example, even better.
It’s all in the setting and how tastefully it’s done, and you can’t legislate taste. To be blunt, it’s the difference between art and porn, you know it when you see it, and I’m not going to legislate art out of existence.
Booth Babes?!? Morally reprehensible?!? Are you kidding me?
No.
Buying a business to strip and flip it, regardless what happens to the people that work there, refusing to cough up your own money when things don’t quite work out as planned and instead steal from the hard working people who already said no, you can’t have any, and then publicly humiliating them by spending the money to thank them in phoney ads. That’s morally reprehensible.
Any questions?
Re: Engineers at marketing events.
Few more passionate advocates exist for a product than the engineer(s) who designed it. But having engineers talk to the public all day is a double-edged proposition. Few people know the weaknesses of a product more intimately than the engineer(s) who designed it. :)
If GM and Chrysler were using our tax dollars on booth babes, I’d be pissed. But from what I can see of the pictures (and I confess to a more than casual glance), they appear to be hired by the Italian supercar companies, which doesn’t phase me.
I mean, what do you think a carmaker that names its best known vehicle the “Countach” is really selling?
RF – no disrespect intended but this very website also sometimes uses “eye catching” images of women along with sometimes unrelated content. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a electronics expo like CES or any auto show – booth babes are a fact of life driven by human nature.
Cars are all about sex appeal. If they weren’t, we would all be driving a Pelosi Sti or whatever. Pretty much every choice we make, somewhere in the back of our mind we think about how the opposite sex would view us if we bought this. ( food, clothes, schooling, cars, boats, housing ) it’s not the only reason, but it’s considered by most of us, for most of our life. If sex were not a major human obsession, would there really be six and a half billion of us? I think attractive women standing next to a car, effectively “vouching” for it, is not the worst thing in the world. And I think women understand this too. Look at most women obsession with convertibles: all the better to display themselves in while dressed up, made up, and on the go.
How many car show attendees would be happy to see a 250 lb. soccer mom in sweat pants hawking their favorite car? That’s what I thought.
How many car show attendees would be happy to see a 250 lb. soccer mom in sweat pants hawking their favorite car? That’s what I thought.
Eeech. Nobody wants to see that kind of reality. Ever.
Cars, car shows and glam all go together. You car is a projection to the public of who you are – or would be if you can afford the right projectile.
If it were not so we would all be driving one of a few basic cars:
A Golf
A van (windows if for kids, panels if for parts)
Some four-door saloon for long-ish trips…a Zil! http://digilander.libero.it/cuoccimix/zil117(71-85).jpg
RF, you need a trip to the West Coast to warm up. It’s so cold here you’ve sunk into a heterothermic torpor.
Robert,
Advertisers have studied this issue very carefully, and discovered that women and their voices are better at attracting the attention of both men AND women than men are.
Attractive people are seen as more credible and are more likely to hold the attention of the audience than average-looking (or worse) people are.
You can quibble about the mode of dress – if you think this is shocking, you apparently haven’t seen how the women contestants are dressing on shows like The Bachelor – but women are going to be working these booths for the foreseeable future.
Well I am just glad the Prius/Fit crowd didn’t give us some dirty hippy chick with dreds and smelling of patchulli (sp).
Of course I want equality amongst the sexes – that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the better looking of the better half.
Most of the booth babes at the Chicago and Detroit shows really aren’t very attractive. Chrysler needs to buy out Lamborghini again, if only to pick up their supplier of booth babes (beautiful and informed). Either have the type of women that Maserati has, or stay with the sales/marketing/dealership personnel that can actually be helpful. Don’t put (what I suspect is) some mid-level manager’s daughter out there in black boots, screaming or shrieking at me from behind the cordon random facts from a placard. If I did, I’d be your friend and come over to your house and pick up your Preferred Employee Friends and Family XYZ Plan Discount Code for a shiny new Jeepster Sport. Or not.
RF apparently doesn’t like booth babes. I don’t like cordons, placards, or shrill women in pointy black boots, especially when mixed together in some godforsaken convention hall with no drinking fountains and overpriced parking. Even, Steven.
If Volvo really believes that well-dressed metrosexual men help them present their brand image, that’s fine. Keep it classy. I’ll be over at the Maserati exhibit. I figure this way. There’s a difference between what guys actually drive and what women they actually have, and the dream Italian car and (Italian?) woman. Somewhere in the middle, there’s probably an Acura, Audi, or Saab with Melissa Lee [or insert your favorite TV personality here] in it. For ten bucks, you can upgrade from the Chevrolet and Pat Benatar [Stevie Nicks?] for at least a few hours.
@ TreyV :
But having engineers talk to the public all day is a double-edged proposition. Few people know the weaknesses of a product more intimately than the engineer(s) who designed it. :)
I agree, as an engineer, I don’t really think about what works. My job is to focus on what is broken, and how to fix it. Plus, if you ask me what doesn’t work, I’ll honestly tell you.
That’s probably not what you want at an event like this.
Have you ever looked at the covers of so called women’s magazines? They generally feature good looking women.
Talk to accomplished professional women today and you might be surprised at their attitude towards the topic of using good looking women to attract attention. The battle of 40 years ago might be over, but the outcome isn’t what many of us over the hill types seem to think. Check out the demographics of who watched the Hefner eye candy show “The Girls Next Door” and you will be shocked to find it is popular amongst young professional women.
Recently we had dinner with some family friends, and the thirty something professional woman there was saying how surprised she was that nearly all of her many female co-workers are plastic surgery devotees. Using your six figure income to buy a stripper’s figure is all the rage.
The objectification battle might be over, but the peace is turning out to be more complicated than the war was.
I am usually in agreement with this site when it is pointing out the stupid, not thought out, and moronic stuff the Domestic Auto Industry does. However, in this case I have to say “RF, you got it all wrong.”
Putting engineers in front on anyone to explain just about anything is a disaster in the making. Engineers suck at selling stuff because they care too much about details no one else cares about. They. Are. Boring.
So, thankfully, the carmakers haven’t done that. Instead, they have hired “product specialists” (as Michael Karesh so correctly pointed out) to talk about their cars. A product specialist does know a lot of details about the car they are representing. And they have gone through training for their job. They’re not “just models” at all.
Seriously, go to the F-150 display and chat up one of these girls. She’ll surprise you, I guarantee it. I remember when they launched the last F-150, I was very surprised to have my ear talked off by one of these girls.
RF,
I think your pc notions about “babes” are now in fact outmoded. Gregg Easterbrook immediately came to mind while TTAC was going through the occasional post-a-babe phase. I enjoyed the variety and the tacit admission that cars have developed in part along the lines of a sexual status symbol.
The fact is, most well adjusted women accept and adapt to the fact that men are visually stimulated and manipulated. It’s nice however, that we now live in a free market society in which one woman’s silverback is another woman’s punchline. Car preference is to some degree an indicator/predictor of what sort of person you might settle down with–or not…
A personal anecdote: I met a booth babe at the Detroit show a couple of years back. She considered it a sweet gig. She worked for one of the upscale marques, had occasional television acting gigs, and ran her own promotional staffing company. She was well briefed on the product, in spite of living in NYC and having no car of her own. There is no question that her appearance was one of the tools in her arsenal, that it played a part in her career choices. Were I in charge of staffing a show, I would hire her in a heartbeat, it would have been a no brainer.
So that’s one vote for bringing back the babes. I can think of two or three instances where they would be appreciated. One, where absolutely appropriate, such as a story about booth babes. Two, where wildly out of context, such as might spice up bailout watch 701. Finally in place of a photo of a long in the tooth model, such as the Focus–who needs to see that?
Some great comments here and guess what.
Women – in general – like to be thought of as attractive. Men too! Attractiveness helps you gain a mate and procreate. No amount of social conditioning will wash that out of our genes – until, I guess, it is time for our species to vanish.
Placing value judgment on men’s attraction to women, womens’ attraction to men and all the permutations therein is the game of folks who have it too easy and can spend time worrying about such poppycock.
Live, love, laugh
and drive fast cars that turn well and have good brakes.
Robert, I thought that was a very good editorial.
And I agree. They don’t add anything to the car’s display; they can be awkward for the guys in attendance; and they can be awkward for the ladies in attendance. Most of all their presence is condescending. Do they not think the attendees are serious enough about cars? Now, I don’t think this applies to a well-informed presenter who might be quite attractive, that’s different.
My friends tell me the video game industry is moving away from booth babes. Maybe the intimidation factor is stronger in that sector, but my friends do report a more relaxed and technically-focused atmosphere without the models present.
The Autoblog pictures confirm a trend I noticed at the Los Angeles Auto Show this past November:
The higher the price of the car, the more cheesecake-y the women flaunting
themselvesthe car.Mainstream manufacturers, such as Toyota and Volvo, employ women who could plausibly pass as salespeople (some of them even are salespeople). They dress in company polo shirts, khaki pants and sensible shoes.
Upper-end manufacturers (e.g. Porsche), have women who are clearly fashion models, but they are dressed in ‘power suits’, knee-length skirts and fashionable (but still business-appropriate) shoes.
Exotic manufacturers (e.g. Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc.). Now the “gentleman’s club” look comes out. The women are almost universally blond (natural or artificial), extremely skinny, have ‘bolt-on’ busts, and are dressed in little black dresses and ‘Do me!’ pumps.
I guess the auto companies know which kind of woman goes with which kind of automotive fantasy…:-D..
3 Cheers, RF!
I rather dislike the use of women as eye-candy and simple sex objects. It is demeaning and makes car lovers look like stupid meatheads. I rather like and respect women, I like them so much I married one. It would be nice if I could go to a car show without her rolling her eyes, imagining me drooling from booth to booth, ogling boobs rather than automobiles.
Leave sexual objectification out of cars, please and thank you. Women make up 50% of the car buying public and deserve to be treated with the same respect as the men who buy the glossy mags.
Talk about over analyzing every freaking automotive related event,issue…etc. Classy looking women have been used in a whole lot of other places, from trade shows for other product, to co-hosting game shows. Hell a woman has to be attractive to be a news anchor, now that is sexist. As long as the ladies are dressed well and not looking like SEMA or NOPI girls this shouldn’t be an issue. And I mean a nice suit or some other class looking outfit. [But I don't doubt that the male press would in some but not all cases be whoring around the ladies and the shrimp and beer]