Are you a male who drives a ute? Score yourself 5 points. Now is it a Ford? 3 points. Happens to be black too? Ka-ching! (confetti raining) That’s a ten for you, congratulations—you don’t know it yet but your car could help rev up your lacklustre dating life. Your choice of vehicle makes you the number one urban chick magnet exuding some serious alpha male prowess, says a surprising research study that has women ranking the most attractive men as driving not flashy sports cars, but gasp, utes!

Male model with his car

The allure of the automobile

By all odds if you drive a ute, especially a Ford in shiny black mica finish, you’ve got the best chance of getting her phone number. Good news for tradies? Makes perfect sense. Dudes in utes appear to be perfect for rescuing damsels in distress by changing tyres, lugging white goods, and fixing leaky pipes. However your chances could still be good if you’re a sports car driver which ranks a close second, and an SUV, third.

Suggest you ditch the mail truck as there’s not a lot of favour there (ranked last actually on the survey) which quite stumps me—whatever happened to marketing images of hunky courier blokes with perfectly white veneers in khaki uniforms and caps flexing their buff bulging biceps delivering Fedex boxes? I thought those used to break the monotony of a languid afternoon at the office reception desk and made the admin girls giggle and blush while provocatively asking “Where do I sign?”

Sorry I got sidetracked there. As I was saying, the startling study involved 2000 male and females ranking who they perceived to be the most alluring members of the opposite sex based on the type, brand and colour of vehicle driven. The women surveyed view a man as oozing the most appeal when he has his macho he-man arms wielding the steering wheel of a Ford (16 percent), Chevrolet (13 percent) or Porsche (11 percent).

And girls—your perceived allure rises too if YOU drive a sports car. Thirty-nine percent of blokes surveyed think so anyway, followed by women parked in a sedan or SUV which came second and third respectively in the catwalk of what’s hot and what’s not for the men. Whatever you do, NEVER ever drive a minivan. Makes sense again. Cars like a Honda Odyssey or Toyota Tarago are probably driven by highly strung and irritable soccer mums with a mini league of mud-caked kids to spew venom at and ferry around. You can’t possibly be much fun when your day ends promptly at 2.15pm to get to school in time for the 3pm school bell and pick up.

The hate rating increases when your minivan happens to be green. I know, life is so unfair. Don’t shoot me, I drive minivans too—rental ones on driving holidays. Now I know why the only males that gawked at me on my last driving trip were a lascivious German Shepherd with its tongue hanging out and this creepy Staffordshire Bull Terrier perched behind a ute. Yes ladies, do stick with the sports automobiles if you are on a man hunt, they’re the vehicles of choice that inhabit the land where dude attraction rules. Geez, it’s hard to be a woman as it is whether or not you believe in these results.

And another advice by the way, says the survey—ladies should go for ‘red’ with the sports car. Red seems to make a man’s heart skip a beat as the top colour of choice. Blame Chris de Burgh when he crooned what in my opinion may be one of mainstream music’s most annoying hits of all time, “Lady In Red”. It was not said in the research if a red outfit will nab you the Mr Right you want but I reckon the whole package helps, plus you should definitely do the whole Nicole Kidman thing and exude Chanel No. 5. If you have to wait too long for a red, silver and black will do too (Completely my opinion:I’m thinking pink is too cute, yellow smacks of lemons and bananas, purple too evil Elvira and green scares men into thinking you’ll rule them with military tyranny).

The blokes have reportedly voted the best sports car for a lady as either a BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or Porsche, in that order! If you ask me, looks like a red BMW Z4 or M5 might fit the bill nicely, followed by perhaps a hot chilli red Mercedes-Benz SLK250 compact luxury roadster, then…atop the automotive food chain of course, the predominantly masculine Porsche 911. Take note that times are a-changing even with a traditionally ‘man’ machine as the 911—now the choice for female celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan; no surprise that those two have so much in common.

One thing I’ve learnt for sure from reading the survey. Science explains well why men are such visual creatures turned on by sight. Who could forget the hilarious Seinfeld episode where George Costanza takes a bit too much of a peek?. Men see what they want in terms of automobile design especially characteristics bearing familiar feminine allure. Like fluttering mascaraed eyelashes that say “Come Hither”, a man so often does a double take on sighting the stiletto-esque sharp sleek curves of a red sports car. As he’s driving behind a BMW X6, he wonders why its ‘bustle’ skirted rear reminds him so much of Jennifer Lopez?

Of course, none of these findings will explain to us why more than 80% of males are top buyers of both the BMW M5 and Porsche 911.

It’s time to measure up the showroom choices this Easter for your next chick magnet perhaps? Modern life can be so demanding. Not only must you now decide if that set of wheels you’re buying is efficient, affordable, performance-oriented and safe, now you wonder if it’s one that will empower you enough for her phone number.

Before you start shopping, we recommend you speak to our team of experienced car finance specialists today to wield more bargaining power at the dealership or with your private seller. Get the best rates from 360 Finance today for your next car loan application and get it approved fast with competitive interest rates and flexible repayments to suit you!