Currently reading: Matt Prior's tester's notes - Let the cars do the talking

They may look glamorous, but manufacturers shouldn't rely on beautiful women to get themselves motor show coverage

One lingering thought from the Geneva motor show, whose news has otherwise mostly now passed.

If you are a car maker who populates your motor show stand exclusively with female models, I am going to assume one, or more, of the following three things.

One, that you think your car is so uninteresting that no one will deign to look at it unless a model is standing next to it. Two, that you think I’m so shallow and vacuous that I won’t be interested in looking at or writing about your car unless there’s a model standing next to it. 

And three, that when you say you’re serious about encouraging women to study science, engineering or business and to join and succeed in what is a transparent, equal-opportunity car industry, you’re totally full of it. 

Because if that last point were true, at your company’s most public event of the year, you wouldn’t make your highest-profile female workers the ones who are employed only for their ability to stand and pose.

So which of those three is it? None reflects particularly well on you.

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Matt Prior

Matt Prior
Title: Editor-at-large

Matt is Autocar’s lead features writer and presenter, is the main face of Autocar’s YouTube channel, presents the My Week In Cars podcast and has written his weekly column, Tester’s Notes, since 2013.

Matt is an automotive engineer who has been writing and talking about cars since 1997. He joined Autocar in 2005 as deputy road test editor, prior to which he was road test editor and world rally editor for Channel 4’s automotive website, 4Car. 

Into all things engineering and automotive from any era, Matt is as comfortable regularly contributing to sibling titles Move Electric and Classic & Sports Car as he is writing for Autocar. He has a racing licence, and some malfunctioning classic cars and motorbikes.