KyleR imo, is quite right. I think all those guys who sit here and say "the girl is irrelevent, i never look at her, just the car" is talkin out of his arse. Deny that fact all they want.
IMO. Sex sells, infact thats not an opinion, its recognised as being solid advertising fact. However using sex to sell products also has the unavoidable consequence of catagorising your brand/product at a particular level.
This level is usually set by the quality of the advertising, the models and the photography used.
I think most people would agree that these days, to think Nice car + Girl general conjures up images of the late 20thC when most of the "girls" were generally rather rough and tbh didn't have a clue what they were trying to look sexy next to.
This would be bad for an upmarket high quality company to try and make use of.
That said, there are also many examples of women being used to sell cars and it works really well.
I think that if a company could convince me that the girls in the pictures next to thier products either A. had a genuine vested interest in said product OR B. knew what they were holding/standing next to. Then it could work.
But the model would need to be tastefully dressed, attractive without being obviously plastic or fake. A great Idea would be to use employee's or maybe past customers of products that also happen to be roastingly hot babes! Otherwise, i would think that a big buidget for high quality models and photographers would be required to avoid the tacky stigma
It doesnt work for most things, I dont think it would make sense to have a model holding the next generation fuel pump in her hands or something (although i bet a good photographer could probably prove me wrong here) but if done properly, Sex sells!