“I don’t think our ads are sexist. I don’t think they objectify women. They are humorous ads designed to show that things can go wrong with a car,” writes Ultra Tune executive chairman Sean Buckley.
One of the ads, clearly designed for International Women’s Day, has the headline “We’re now into rubber” and shows two young lasses dressed in skin-tight rubber clothing with their knees up on a large Goodyear.
The woman in a rubber skirt, who is not the one in the thigh-high patent-black-leather boots, is holding what I would call a whip but what I am reliably informed is called in the S&M caper a flogger. The ad is probably telling us that if you flog your car while driving in a latex flounce dress the tyres will soon need to be replaced. So it’s really a community service ad, then.
Talking community service, it’s fewer than 50 sleeps until this year’s Shitbox Rally. The SBR, along with the 24 Hours of LeMons, is a highlight of the global motorsport calendar. Your entrant, the Weekend Australian Motoring (WAM) Ford Falcon BA ute, will tackle more than 200 other classic autos costing no more than $1000 and some of the roughest roads in the world for no purpose other than showing the futility of self-driving cars, electric cars and any car with collision avoidance. Oh, and to raise heaps of cash for the Cancer Council.
Rock 1-sump nil. The damaged Weekend Australian ute hitches a ride in last year’s Shitbox Rally.
Rock 1-sump nil. The damaged Weekend Australian ute hitches a ride in last year’s Shitbox Rally.
Recognising the huge branding opportunities, Westpac (a bank) has become a major sponsor. Surely other major global corporations such as Ultra Tune can’t be far away from joining it. Anyway, if the rumours are correct we should expect to see Westpac boss Brian Hartzer competing in his very original Mini Cooper station wagon.
This year’s rally is even more personal for me. A few years ago I lost my middle sister to cancer and two weeks ago my eldest sister was diagnosed with advanced stage of the disease.
With Weekend Australian Motoring’s advanced technology you’ll be able to follow us as we navigate more than 3500km from Mackay in mid-north Queensland to Hobart in southern Tasmania. The back way. Our technical advisers, the king of Mokes, Mark Southcott, and motoring editor Phil King, the only person in the world who believes a Land Rover is worth buying, suggest that the most difficult section of the course is crossing Bass Strait in a Falcon Ute. But what would they know? For those of you in the US, the drive is the equivalent of motoring NYC to Las Vegas on dirt roads or from London to Ankara on the normal roads, which are dirt anyway.
Anyway, here at Motoring we are all revved up. You will be able to experience every minute of the seven days through the miracle of tweets, emails, faxes, telex and printed paper. And if you are in any of the quaint rural towns on the route, towns such as Quilpie, Thargomindah, Cobar, Melbourne and Devonport, you will be able to see us in real life, unfortunately. Come up and say hullo and get a free copy of The Weekend Australian from a month ago, a Weekend Australian pen, bag, umbrella or editor.
This is shortened version of the original article. Click here to read the rest at The Australian.
