Chrysler's booth babe backlash

While walking around Cobo Hall on the first public day of the Detroit Auto Show last week, I did a double take when I saw the Fiat Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep team. Stunning? Yes. Gorgeous? Yes. Amazing dresses? Yes.

Making my life incredibly fcuking difficult? Yes.

I came across one beautiful blond wearing a silver, low-cut Herve Leger bandage dress like a second skin. Total knockout. Totally taking our job back to 1962.

Of course I do not begrudge these women for being beautiful; we're all models here after all and must meet at least a minimum level of attractiveness. I was truly surprised to see her dressed the way she was on a public day; outfits like that are usually reserved for press and preview - cocktail wear, if you will. What really bugged me was that after I chatted with her for a bit, it became obvious that she was not there to talk about the car and was merely there as a photo op. And then my head exploded.

I did see a bevy of Italian fashion models milling about in business suits, so I figured they were the product specialists and had the info. I was wrong. I asked around a bit here and there and here's what I was told about the Fiat sitch...

Last year's Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep team was canned. Even the stunningly gorgeous ones. All of the incredibly knowledgeable ones. Each and every talented and experienced presenter now out of a job.

Fiat, being a European company, wanted a European feeling to their displays so they replaced the team with pure eye candy. Problem is, this isn't Europe. Here in the good ol' USA women buy 60% of new cars and 80% of us are involved, singly or jointly, in making car buying decisions. And while we like talking with attractive people (human nature being what it is) we're not all that interested in taking photos with beautifully coiffed, designer-clad LA models.

So anyway, last year's awesome team was replaced with these new European-esque babes, and that would have been fine, I suppose, if they had been equally qualified and trained because hey, sometimes you just need to shake things up a little, right?

But that's not exactly what happened. My source says the even the business suited brunettes don't know their cars and their presentations were mediocre at best. Source said that it was obvious they had little public speaking experience.

(I also don't understand why they would let the talents of Nicole, the blond in this video, go to waste - she says she was a Porsche product specialist last year and those girls knew their shizz. This year Fiat has her posing - nothing more.)

So how exactly does this fcuk up my entire world, you ask? Goody, let me explain it to you. Women like Margery Krevsky have worked long and hard for many, many years to create an environment in which men (most of you, anyway) and women (pretty much all of you now) actually trust a good looking woman to tell you about your favorite cars. When you have a bunch of scantily-clad, uninformed and inexperienced models in the same position as the rest of us product specialists, it eats away at that trust.

Plus, y'all try to grab my ass and put a telephoto lens on my boobs a lot more when there are babes in mini dresses nearby.

Anyway, Chrysler must have heard the rumblings because by the last weekend of the show the silver mini dresses were gone and replaced with capri pants and sleeveless white blouses.

Before:

After:

This is, of course, merely a Band-Aid. Hopefully they will throw a product handbook at them in time for the next show. There's absolutely no reason why Fiat's crew can't retain their absolute gorgeousness, know their product inside out and give compelling presentations at the same time.

FOX reporter shut down by Chrysler girl

EDITED 1/20/10: It appears that Barrett has pulled the video, not anticipating it would bring such attention. You can read his own blog post about it here. Lauren, the model in question, has chimed in to the conversation in his comment section.

FOX Toledo reporter Barrett Andrews thought he could be sly by slipping a come-on into his chat with a lovely auto show model who kindly humored him by granting an interview request.

We don't have to do that, by the way. We are under no obligation to give recorded interviews if we are uncomfortable doing so. Lauren very kindly played along with his seemingly innocent line of questioning, even mentioning the tired "Do you come with the car?" line. It was a cute interview, a run-of-the-mill human interest piece that would have been quickly forgotten in the news of the day if Barrett hadn't set himself up for a fall.

I LOVE how she doesn't even dignify him with a response. She does what all good auto show models do: simply rolls her eyes, turns on her heel and walks away. We have no time for this nonsense.

Joking or no, for him to do that on-camera, while both of them are working by the way, is even tackier and for that his rejection is even more richly deserved.

Edited to add: And also? Autoblog just picked this up and gave me a great shout-out. Thanks so much, guys!