TOYS FOR BOY RACERS

Candida Crewe finds the Motor Show

trapped in the taste-free zone of the 1970s

THE MAN on the Skoda stand at this year's motor show in Earls Court, all by himself, was looking a bit forlorn. Unlike the salesmen on swankier stands, such as the Hyundai one across the way, he didn't have many girls with good legs and blue mascara to help him out. His colourful tie, which complemented so well the grey shoes, was not enough.

All around him the competition was strutting its stuff. Peugeot had blue lasers making their lion logo pattern on the car- pet; Saab, obviously feeling generous this year, were giving away free red and orange lollipops. Ford, too, were pushing the boat — or, rather, the middle-range saloon — out. Their new line of mints, called Escorts, were proving very popular among the anoraks and beards. And an all-alu- minium Audi was doing a twirl on a contin- ually turning stage. Every car in sight was as shiny as a wet-look patent-leather shoe. So was the Skoda, but, rather boxy by nature, it lacked the Flash Harry appeal of the Honda.

'You're on to a bit of an uphill struggle,' I said to Bill (for that was the name on his badge) with genuine compassion, and another couple of sweat pimples popped up on his pink nose. 'The Skoda jokes are only on the people who make the jokes,' he said to me quicklY, indignantly. 'Vauxhall spent £3 billion on buying 70 per cent of our company. The industry recognises our success; dealers can't get enough of them. In fact, the only people we've got left to impress are some 14-year-old school kids who are still hang- ing on the lips of Jasper Carrott. And he made all the jokes about the Reliants, the second largest car manufacturer in the UK after Rover, and they went bankrupt. Say no more . I don't know what all those silly, scandalous jokes are about.'

Did you hear the one about the skip. ..?'

wouldn't lower my brain with any such things. I'm known to have a sense of humour, but not in this respect I don't.'

I'd never been to a motor show before, and I'd obviously said the wrong thing. Clutching my Skoda brochure, which Bill had subtly slipped into my hand during his tirade, I slunk away. The Vauxhall attrac- tion was about to begin.

There was a girl on their stand, all sharp suit and eye-shadow, holding a pile of price guides. She was beside a man called Ernie with a clipboard. They were proudly standing by the new Vauxhall Combo, a van dressed up in the red and yellow livery of the Royal Mail. I asked whether many postmen were expected at the motor show. They told me how much I was going to enjoy the dancing girls.

Suddenly the lights dimmed, and rotund men with serious expressions and rolled-up copies of Autocar gathered round the stage. The backdrop was a wall of video

screens; the two starring 'concept' cars glittered up stage left and right. The music started, and a voice cluttered with clichés said, 'The Trakka's nothing if not versa- tile.'

And out strode six girls in working over- alls and hard helmets, with smiles as bright and plastic as the Cavalier's headlights. One put a cement sack into the back of the Vauxhall van, shaking her hips, and her cleavage, all the while. The others appeared in little black dresses, gyrating with suitcases which, as part of their party piece, they put — oh, clever little things, with no man to help them — into the Tygro's spacious boot.

It was part Miss World, part Pan's Peo- ple, with knobs on. I thought things like this, not much more politically correct than The Black and White Minstrel Show, went out with the Seventies, but here they are, as tacky as ever, used as a means to entice customers to buy the latest, state- of-the-art cars of the Nineties. But the men clapped loudly, so Vauxhall, whose Corsas have been made so popular with the super-model advertising campaign, have obviously got the right idea.

Michael, 39, a stationery driver from London — 'not a contradiction in terms, I drive for a stationer's — was impressed by the show. 'It was the combination of cars

and girls,' he said. 'Though it must be said, I'd never buy a bad car because it had a nice girl it it. Motorcar sellers just use girls anyway.'

Certainly there were a lot of them about, on the stands, dressed up as sensibly as air- hostesses, only with shorter skirts. Natural- ly enough, among the thousands of punters, there were barely as many women as salesgirls. I spotted a few, but they'd mostly been dragged along by their hus- bands. There were a couple of old women from Oxfordshire, but their reasons for going were less than obsessive, very lady- like.

'We were at Blenheim horse trials spon- sored by Audi, and got free tickets,' said one.

'We thought it might help us get some answers for the Win a Saab competition in the Radio Times,' said her friend, peering hopefully into the innards of an opened-up four-door model which looked as though it was undergoing an autopsy.

But the majority of the motor show goers were men, many of whom were self-con- fessed car bores. There was a lot of oohing and aahing going on, except round the Fer- rari stand, where, but for the click of peo- ple's flash-bulbs, there was a sort of awed silence. I saw many fingering display engines with more canoodling attention