I’ve tested for you: Do sport cars attract women? December 16, 2008
Posted by Sacha in /dev/null, Cars.trackback
I can be considered as a reasonable car-lover (actually, I can be considered “reasonable” for anything – I am Swiss). So a few months back, I decided to satisfy an old dream and buy a Porsche 911 Turbo (a used one – I am “reasonable”). It was the perfect model, the perfect color, the perfect price and, more than anything, the perfect age: at 33, you cannot be accused of going through your mid-life crisis. Bottom line: the perfect Swiss-situation, flying under the radar.
As soon as I got my car (it was sometimes this summer), most of my friends asked me “So, does it work with women? I mean… you know…” Great question, and yes, I know what you mean.
For complete disclosure, I am the perfectly happy husband of a wonderful wife who i) thinks cars are cans with wheels, ii) vote on the left of the left and iii) elegantly hides her face with her hair when there is no choice but to use my capitalistic car to go some place. Hence, if my wife had to be the first women to go through my test, it would have been a total failure.
Now, after a few months of somehow scientific testing, I am ready to report two essential findings:
- Sport cars do NOT attract women;
- Sport cars DO attract 8 years old boys.
And this is not based on mixed-results: sport cars (Porsche at least) had no impact whatsoever on women (so inexistant that I don’t even need to define what “impact” means – nada, zero). On the other hand, 8 years old boys are totally CRAZY about them. They know everything about them and could easily trade “2 months without watching TV” against “a bumpy ride”. A friend of mine even had his son organize a ride with one of his buddies the day they had a school-organized event at a theater. Obviously, I was asked to stop the car “just in front of the theather” so they could be well visible 
My wife must be right, I am like an 8 years old sometimes…
Onward,
Sacha
P.S.: for sake of completeness, I must add that my daughter Eva – she is two years old – loves my car and the noise it makes. She could even recognize the Porsche logo on a piece of paper and associate it with “la voiture de papa” when she was 18 months. Based on that, I’ll try to determine when females starts totally ignoring sport cars.
For your results to have any scientific value you need to research the impact on less “reasonable” societies. I would happily volunteer to test drive it in this part of the world and report back
Sacha, you don’t look a day over 32. It must be the clean Alpine air.
Dimitris,
I think you actually make a very good point, I am convinced my results would have been “slightly” different in countries around the Mediterranean sea. Now, given that the distance between Neuchâtel and Athens is 2’145km, I am not sure you want to “enjoy” the comfort of such a car on such a long distance. But you’ll probably argue that you’re wiling to give that much to for scientific research.
Rich,
Yes, not sure what it is, but it seems like my face refuses to get older. Who knows, maybe I’ll look old overnight sometimes in 10 years (!)
Hi Sasha!
I’m Niklas Andersson, the Swedish Journalist, living in Spain. We met at “Open Source World Conference” in Malaga about a month ago.
I’ve had the pleasure to run my BMW Z3 convertible for plenty of years on costa del sol. Now I’m about to sell it though as I dont dare to take it on yet another ride between Sweden and Spain just to pass the yearly revision (I’ve got swedish plates)
One of my favourite hobbies where to take the car and a gorgeous girl to Ronda, a nice spectacular village about 40km north of Marbella, with Lenny Kravitz in the loud speakers and the sun in my face.
“Ignoring you” is just part of the game, but I guess once you’re “hooked” i.e married the car becomes a threat. My ex-wife loved my car til the day we married – then she wanted me to sell it
Congrats to a nice car, and to JBoss 5.0.0!
LOL, I do remember you Niklas! Maybe I should just start driving on the sea coast one of these days to (un-)validate my scientific research.
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@Sacha: I hate to say this, but my minivan doesn’t attract women, and it also doesn’t attract 8-year old boys, though I am often forced to load it up with my son’s 9-year old friends. At those times I wish I had a Porsche so that I could only fit my son in the car, but my wife prefers me to take all of them.
What about a Ferrari ?
My point is that with a Ferrari you are less likely to look “nouveau riche” ! Maybe the swiss women ignore you because in switzerland
a Porsche is too common
To complete your study, you should try different cars,
and the choices are straigthforward: Ferrari, Lamborghini…
nah…. Ferrari would look WAY MORE “nouveau riche”. Actually, the “problem” might be that with a Porsche you fly under the radar in Switzerland (Pun not intended). Based on some non-scientific evidence, I bet that a Maseratti would work: luxury car, but very classy… Plus, might be cheap to get one these days with the number of young traders looking to trade their luxury car for food.
first off let me compliment you on your choice of cars. I am not much for imports(I live in upstate NY in the US), but if i was going to buy an import it would definately be a porsche, I have always like porsches and I happen to love the way the 911 looks. However I think that your flying under the radar theory might be right, it would be like if i had bought a mustang, because in my area they are basically a dime a dozen and everyone and their brother has one. In light of this, I opted to purchase a 1986 camaro, and let me tell you just the fact that there aren’t many around is enough to draw attention from the ladies. I think your research would be better served if you tried a few different cars, like a Maseratti, maybe a Mercedes or high end BMW. I might just be a crazy yankee, but I would getting yourself a nice dose of good old fashioned American muscle.
Don’t take offense to this.
i love the porsche and how it looks. my uncle has one in connecticut.
But i find that if u had a car that no one sees, then u get attention from women. I see tons of porsches. I have also seen out of shape guys with lambos get hot girls. Also you should get red or yellow to make it flashy as possible so people will know that you own an exotic. Women will know that you are different and higher status when they see everyone respecting you for having an exotic.
if you have an aston martin, just tell them that it is the James Bond car
Last week I saw ferrari f430 scuderia and porsche 997 turbo side bye side, interesting is that all the girls,boys,women,man look at ferrari but not a lot ppl look at porsche. 997 turbo was totally inferior to a scuderia that it was so sad.
I’m trying to say that cars like lambo gallardo, ferrari f430 or new audi R8 V10 are those who attract much more than porsche’s who are allways the same looking, exotic cars get women but great sport cars like porsche don’t.