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The secret location where the last sexy Pirelli calendar is still on display ▲ Why Larry went ballistic in a corporate tire store ▲ How car repair outfits rip you off ▲ The can’t-miss marketing platform that guarantees business success ▲ How a merchant made Larry a customer for life ▲ The two “P” words that mean you’re gonna get screwed ▲ What Keurig coffee, Ellen DeGeneres, WiFi and the new Pirelli calendars have in common
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Never mind all the NASCAR flap about Bubba Wallace and the noose that turned out to be a garage-door pull-rope. Cancel Culture has had Car Culture in the cross-hairs for decades. When did it begin? That’s hard to say.
As a kid, I used to slide into car dealerships and glom brochures. They rarely cared and if they did, I told the sales guy my old man asked me to get them for him. Car brochures were sort of my pre-puberty porn – post-puberty, too. The photography and art direction that went into brochures for GM’s better lines – namely, Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Buick, were eye-popping and heart-stopping.
And if sensual expanses of sheet metal and curvy chrome weren’t enough, they’d pair the car with some impossibly elegant and sexy woman – usually on the arm of a dude who looked much older than she was. She’d be mid-twenties, fully ripe and juicy. He’s be silver at the temples; vintage, but past his prime. She never seemed to mind.
When I wasn’t looking, all that went away. Now car ads are a fucking snore. Either features and benefits lists or virtue-signaling piles of bullshit. “Subaru cares about you, and the planet, and Covid-19, and social justice and just plug in whatever the next hot cause du jour is and we’ll tell you we care about that, too, because we think you’re stupid and our market research and sales figures are proving you are.”
First, they went after the manufacturers and removed the sex and fun. Seems market research indicates female buyers don’t like sex and fun, and least not in an automotive setting. Which I don’t understand at all. The sex I’ve had in cars was some of the best of my life.
But face it, few women give a size-small damn about the workings of a car. But guys do. Which is why overwhelmingly, DIY car maintenance and customization is still a man’s world. BUT, they (and you can figure out for yourself who they are) demand total hegemony and have come after the automotive aftermarket as well. They want it neutered. It began with the famed (a hack writer would use the word iconic) Pirelli calendar – for decades the zenith of sexy automotive marketing. They spent a couple of million producing each one. They never sold any. It was a promotional giveaway to distributors.
They were magnificent. Look at these images from the 1984 edition.
Sexy as hell. Without a hint of sleaze. That’s a narrow line to toe. But Pirelli did it, year – after year. Until about 2010. Then Pirelli caved to the screaming mob of cretins who find images of beautiful women in beautiful places…offensive.
This is now the caliber of Pirelli calendars.
Crap.
Vacuous, overdone, pointless crap, that has exactly what to do with tires or cars? Please explain, I’ll wait.
In a secret location in the sprawling San Fernando Valley is a decrepit tire store that still displays the 1984 Pirelli calendar, where those riveting images of female perfection first appeared. I will not name the place or the location. Some day, some angry harridan will roll a buggy, rheumy orb over that calendar, snap a picture on her i-Phone (they never use Androids – it’s almost like a law). She will then scream and point and reeeeeeeeee! Until that offensive calendar is removed and burned. Because in this ass-clown PC world, angry, buggy-rheumy-eyed harridans are in control.
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