Baby, you can drive my car

Mixing cars, romance and sex together is an advertising cliché. Just look at all the ads featuring a beautiful car and a beautiful woman. Now, a Japanese car manufacturer is promoting a contest based on real-life flirtations that begin with a glance at a “cool” car. Some of the contest stories show that a love affair involving an automobile can be a life-changing experience.

Among the entries to Mitsubishi’s “Search for Road Romantics” contest:

• A woman who met her fiancé while driving side-by-side on the highway. Her suitor bought the engagement ring with the money he made from selling his car. These lovebirds only needed one vehicle.

• A California woman who was so attracted to a stylish black car she saw on her daily commute that she always pulled up alongside it to check it out. She eventually spoke to the driver, they hit it off, and their first date was at a professional racetrack, where he let her race his car. No word on whether this relationship lasted the season.

• Not all auto/romance stories turn out happily. A man whose red convertible drew the attention of an attractive woman at a red light soon s the merits of a good tune-up. He revved his engine, the light changed, his car stalled, and she roared off, never to be seen again. He won’t likely win the contest grand prize, either.

The people at Mitsubishi seem to be taking this very seriously. Dr. Anne-Renee Testa, a “leading relationship expert”, says that “being behind the wheel of a sleek, stylish car has a psychological effect on the driver, and it invokes feelings of confidence and attractiveness. These feelings are picked up intuitively by other drivers who become drawn to the entire car-driver package.”