Sexiest Cars of 2006
by Dan Lienert
Posted: Sep, 22 2006With HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly.
Sex can get you into trouble. We should have remembered this when sitting down to determine this year’s sexiest cars, because the process was not easy.
When People determines the winner and runners up in its “Sexiest Man Alive” issue, or FHM its “100 Sexiest Women in the World” poll, each entrant on the lists is one of a kind. There is only one Matthew McConaughey, just a single Angelina Jolie.
But there are multiple Ferraris. Tons of Mercedes-Benzes. There are two Lamborghinis, and they look pretty similar from the front. In fact, because consistency is an automotive-design virtue -- upscale companies such as Cadillac and BMW make all their grilles the same so you can recognize their cars instantly -- picking the sexiest car from a family of similar-looking vehicles can be a very tough job.
In Pictures: The Sexiest Cars 2006
The recent New York International Auto Show demonstrated that making customers lust after cars is a top priority for automakers. Audi showed a sultry new TT sports car. DaimlerChrysler showed a 507-horsepower Mercedes sedan and a limousine version of the sinister-looking Chrysler 300. Nissan Motor showed a new Infiniti. Toyota Motor displayed a sleek Scion prototype. Even Saturn, possibly the least sexy car company around, showed a luxurious sport utility vehicle and a 260-hp roadster. And New York is not even the most significant auto show.
The point is, one thing car dealers and Hollywood agents have in common is a desire to broker sex appeal; it just might come in the shape of beautiful cars instead of beautiful people. But these days, you have to look hard to find unsexy cars.
Knowing we had to whittle hundreds of hot cars down to a list of sexiest models, we first saw a mouthwatering assignment -- a chance to look at Bentleys and Porsches all day.
But then it dawned on us. Bentley has multiple versions of each of its cars. Porsche has what seems like a dozen different kinds of 911s -- convertibles, coupes, two-wheel-drive models, four-wheel-drive models, turbocharged models, non-turbocharged models. If we had to pick 10 or 12 of the market’s sexiest cars, would the list contain five Porsches and five Bentleys? Three Ferraris, two Lamborghinis and seven Mercedes-Benzes? 12 BMWs? Some car enthusiasts -- ourselves included -- could get excited just by flipping through a Lexus catalog. Heck, just a complete list of every Ferrari model is getting pretty steamy.
Clearly, in this golden age of hot cars, we would have to make things interesting. Because we wanted this slide show to be more than just a chance to ogle 10 beautiful cars, we challenged ourselves to walk in other people’s shoes. Forget what we find sexy. What would a Miami Beach plastic surgeon find sexy? What would a hip-hop mogul find sexy?
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