Our friend Amy Sands sends along these pictures from the 13th Beijing International Automobile Exhibition, China’s largest auto show. “Like being on the set of a James Bond movie,” she says. “Couldn’t decide if I found it disgusting or awesome.” Bumblebee’s having a good time, at least.

If you’re thinking of going, be warned: expect horrible traffic, especially on the Airport Express.

More pics from Amy — who was there on behalf of Roundabout China — featuring tall, silver, elegant models, and some shiny cars:

I’m not sure the photo after the jump is suitable for work.

Annnnd….. baited.

I don’t know, maybe I’m mistaken.

We thank Shanghaiist for bringing to our attention these pictures of model Ye Zixue at the Guangzhou Auto Show. We’d say she would have fit right in at the Guangzhou Sex and Culture Festival, but she totally would have stood out.

[NSFW] Model at Guangzhou Auto Show leaves nothing to imagination. And we mean NOTHING. (Shanghaiist)

How bad must a car dealership be to drive someone to demonstrably obliterate his own car? Outside the 12th Qingdao International Auto Show yesterday, three men, apparently driven to the brink by customer service (we’ve all been, yeah?), took sledgehammers and systematically ruined a Maserati (we’ve not done this).

The vehicle was specifically a Maserati Quattroporte reportedly worth 2.6 million yuan ($423,000). “A friend of the luxury car’s owner said they did this to protest the car dealer’s bad service,” reports Sina. Apparently the dealer repaired the car using fixed parts, and that was deemed irremediably unacceptable.

The dealer has admitted to wrongdoing but did nothing for months to fix the problem.

The vengeful owner has set up a special Sina Weibo account to further publicize his discontent. The phtotos below are sampled from Sina. Car News China has more.

(H/T Alicia)

Chinese auto shows are special, able to launch a model’s career in much the same way that American Idol launches pop careers, but when scantily-clad adults are too passe and scantily-clad five-year-olds are too controversial, what does an organizer do?

In Guangdong province, where the 10th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition opened on Friday (extended from seven to 10 days), the answer seems to be: turn to crystal. The above picture is via Xinhua, captioned, “Lexus LFA Crystal model draws attention at Guangzhou auto show on Friday.”

Not to say there wasn’t sex. Not to say that at all:

UPDATE, 9:53 am: More via Kankan Net and Car News China:

(H/T Alicia)

We’re not sure how long this poll is going to be up on Global Times’s English website’s main page — it’s not on the Chinese site – but go vote while you can. I actually am curious to see the final results.

Only question: What is “Other”? Maybe something like, “Classless, but in a societal vacuum, nothing but harmless and confidence-building fun; yet in the real world, likely to be misconstrued by a segment of the population, especially as it is presented in the context of auto shows in China, and will probably become a source of embarrassment when these models come of age”?

I’ll vote for Other, just to be on the safe side.

(This is what we’re talking about.)

(H/T Alicia)

Over the weekend, pictures of preteen girls used as bikini models at the Chutian Auto Culture Festival caused controversy in and around China. Basically, everyone thought it was a bad idea, and probably felt a little uncomfortable looking at the images. But what does the Chutian Auto Culture Festival’s organizer think?

China Daily caught up with one Zhang Ping, general manager of the event’s organizers, 7-Wind Motel Costume Company, and what she said might surprise you.

[She] said the goal was purely to help the children “boost their courage” and no organization or individual made money from the show.

Wait, there’s more.

“If you type the key words ‘children’ and ‘bikini’ into an Internet search engine, you’ll find tens of thousands of results for child bikini contests,” she said on Sunday. “It’s natural for kids to wear bikinis and other things they like.”

Funny thing, because I did that just now, and here are the top results:

And if we just scroll down a little, here’s what we find:

Outcry. Exploitation. Controversy. Which Internet search engine are we talking about, Ms. Zhang? Baidu?

The first page of results is mostly about Chutian Auto Culture Festival. Congratulations, your master plan to gain publicity has worked 10 times better than you imagined.

She said only two 5-year-olds wore bikinis, both with the permission of their parents.

Just so we’re clear on what we’re talking about: car shows in China often feature scantily clad females (usually adults) who are necessarily sex objects. All car shows have cars, and usually the same ones, and there are hundreds of car shows every year. How do these events differentiate themselves? The women they hire have only one purpose, and that is to bring attention to the product they’re standing next to. Somewhere down the line, organizers realized that having them read Tang poetry wasn’t going to do it. Li Yingzhi, one such adult model, once  became famous for wearing a risque diamond dress at a car show, then went on a Web show and had a hostess feel up her breasts to prove they were real. This is the context in which Zhang Ping inserted five-year-olds, and she didn’t even try to distance them from the context of bikini-wearing adults — they pose side by side.

“But the public should not be fussy, as it’s natural for children to wear bikinis at modeling contests,” Zhang said.

Okay you crazy shrew. Just let it all out.

However, organizer Zhang said the publishing of the pictures online had potentially done more harm than the show itself.

Yeah, it’s our fucking fault. Not just the media, but social media. Because it’s not like we live in the digital age.

Look at the photo above. Look past the adults in suits, all those corporate types. Instead, look at the cameras and camera phones. How many pictures are going to stay on those cameras, or used solely for desktop wallpapers? And how many are ending up on Sina Weibo?

Zhang, who merely wanted to sell some cars (in a country in which this happens), wants to say to you: for shame. In her beautifully twisted and alien mind, it is us who have exploited those children, viewing them in the wrong context, and drawing attention to the purely commercial cause of selling cars. For fucking shame, you guys.

If you thought there might have been laws forbidding prepubescent girls from posing as bikini models at car shows, you were wrong. At Chutian Automobile Culture Festival in Wuhan, which kicked off November 16, girls who look about nine years old were marched onto the showroom floor alongside adult models, all wearing two-piece bikinis. The only way this gets more distasteful is if you had these children pose with a snake. Check out the picture after the jump, via Offbeat China.

At the terrible risk of uncomfortable juxtaposition, here’s what auto shows in China are usually like. Ku6 video for those in China after the jump.

UPDATE, 11/19, 9:39 pm: Organizers of the event have spoken out. Via China Daily:

However, Zhang Ping, general manager of the event’s organizers, 7-Wind Model Costume Co, said the goal was purely to help the children “boost their courage” and no organization or individual made money from the show.

“If you type the key words ‘children’ and ‘bikini’ into an Internet search engine, you’ll find tens of thousands of results for child bikini contests,” she said on Sunday. “It’s natural for kids to wear bikinis and other things they like.”

She said only two 5-year-olds wore bikinis, both with the permission of their parents.

More here.

The same young lady who made news on Thursday at the Guiyang Auto Show for playing, while half-nude, with a snake is at it again. Here she is doing a gig for a different company at the same show. More pictures via Car News China, which explains:

Turns out she isn’t very faithful, here she is with a crocodile! She is changing employers too, she was with Chang’an with the snake, now she is with Brilliance, heating up a croc on the hood of a Jinbei S30 mini SUV. An interesting lady this is…

Few more images after the jump.

Organizers of an auto show in Guiyang, Guizhou province has decided hiring topless models isn’t enough to attract attention, since everyone is doing it. They’ve upped the ante with snakes.

We have no idea what cars are being displayed, but Car News China does. Pictures taken Thursday; more after the jump.

(H/T Alicia)

You may remember Li Yingzhi as the model who wore a diamond dress at this year’s Beijing International Automotive show (aka Auto China) worth 100 million yuan. (Here are several pictures of her via Ministry of Tofu.) Last week, a video surfaced of Ms. Li, accompanied by some serious softcore porn music. Behind all that makeup and those diamonds, there’s a human being somewhere. A human being bedecked in diamonds.

UPDATE: Here she is letting a TV show host feel her breasts to “prove” they’re not fake. (Youku video here; between comments about her nose job, one comment reads, “Doesn’t sound good. Like a man.”)