Legend of the Ming Moll: How do car dealers get away with this in 2021?

At the retail coalface, the car industry still gets away with selling cars in this way, in 2021. Here’s the ugly truth about the Ming Moll…

Download the PODCAST for this report

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I need to turn your attention to a pressing social issue:

On my ‘Ask me anything’ livestream - 8:30pm Thursdays, Sydney time FYI - at the risk of sounding like ‘Confession time at the urologist’, I had a problem with my stream, right when I was explaining the whole Ming Moll phenomenon.

So, what are Ming Molls and why do I, at times, refer to them?

Okay, so ‘Ming’ (not the one from Flash Gordon) Ming was a form of automotive paint protection, in the olden days. Like, back when women were still throwing it at me. Occasionally.

Ming was a classic upsell at a dealership. Like, you know the endurance event, right? The sales guy wearing you down, gun at your head, metaphorically. Sign here. Meet the sales manager - he’s closing you, trying to make you think he’s approving a deal the sales guy can’t approve - because it’s so good - but they’re really giggling behind their hands at you standing there, holding your ankles like that.

And you’ve already been interviewed by the finance guy, who’s been trained in the Idi Amin method. Then you lose the circulation in your hands over the trade-in negotiation.

And finally, there’s the hot chick (I’m generalising) in the tight blouse; the buttons - only just adequate, in the domain of load restraint. And her mission is: Look hot and sell you accessories. Generally ones you don’t need. Keyhole surgery - going in through the wallet.

In the trade, this important sales role is invariably referred to (at least in Australia) as ‘the Ming Moll’. I’m not making this up. Every senior executive in every carmaker in the country knows what/who a Ming Moll is. No context is required. Every dealer principal. Every sales manager at dealerships. Every car company wonk. Yeah - the Ming Moll.

Visually, this is  kinda what I’m talking about:

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Moving the needle

So, when I think about recent societal reforms: The flack Jordan Petersen cops for suggesting that the gender pay gap is not as simple as it seems. When he suggests that equality is good in the domain of choice, but bad in the domain of specified outcomes, it makes me wonder how the Dickensian car industry in this country is allowed to sustain the Ming Moll in the 21st Century.

It’s an archaic practise, at best. The ‘Me Too’ movement: Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Meghan Kelly and Fox News. Louis CK. Et cetera. And yet the Ming Molls persist. The industry gets a free pass here. I don’t know where this exemption from scrutiny came from.

It’s not just this high-profile crap, either. The quest for equality is everywhere today. Like, our sewer line backed up, upstream of our joint, couple of months back. The manhole in the back corner of the yard started to overflow. The dog found it most engaging.

So I get on the phone to Sydney Water and the very pleasant young lady on the other end - definitely not Ming Moll material - goes: “Where is the nearest ‘access chamber’?” 

And I’m drawing this blueprint in my head - ‘basic sewage system’ - and I can’t find a place for that label. Access chamber? So I enquire: ‘Access chamber?’ And she goes, somewhat reluctantly: ‘Sir, we used to call them ‘manholes’”.

And I thought - Jesus - if this is the front line of the war on sexism, you’ve already won. Time for a ceasefire. All those young girls who grew up wanting to un-block sewers for a living, but were tragically and systematically shunned by sexist nomenclature such as ‘manhole’. Incredible.

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Perspective

So, as I see it, I wage war on bullshit. Bullshit attitudes and practises in the car industry. And my main weapon is satire. Satire is, like, gentle humiliation, using exaggeration and parody to jam the point home.

Satire beats thumping the table in the manner of Alan Jones, or Alex Jones, right?

So I kind of invented this fictional world. A world where totally hot chicks could could have a legitimate, aspirational career besides porn. A world where being a professional Ming Moll is just as socially endorsed as being a lawyer or a scientist, or a CEO. 

A world where a Ming Moll doesn’t have to apologise for being a Ming Moll.

Of course, for this to occur, Ming Molls would need a representative council to rival the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, or the Australian Automotive Dealer Association. So I made up the Royal Australasian Ming Moll Association, or RAMMA, for short. Cate Blanchette could, perhaps, be their patron. Or the Queen. Or Camilla. (It doesn’t really matter. Someone with appropriate cred.)

Retardistan has had an orange troll as president for four long years, so this really doesn’t sound all that far-fetched, at least, to me.
According to Sydneyfeminists.org - first time I’ve ever visited that site, oddly enough:

Apparently, these include the gender pay gap, women still doing 70 per cent of the housework, and Australia ranking 49th in the world (behind Rwanda, Cameroon, and Afghanistan) in terms of women’s representation in the House of Reps. Apparently, these are (allegedly) just the tip of the extant sexist inequality iceberg:

These include the use of the term ‘mankind’ to describe humanity, and the fact that:

Point of order on that one: Without getting right into it, specifically, there are better insults. Pro tip: insults of that nature orbit the allegation that the recipient is something he is not, not a suggestion that being a woman is somehow less than being a man. 

A man just doesn’t want other men alleging that he’s a girl. Generally. Sure, there are probably a small number of men who do want that (which is a different discussion; it’s all very confusing).

I do wonder where the feminists sit on Ming Molls. Are they for or against. Is it a choice thing or a repression thing? I can’t decide - honestly. 

Ming Molls address the gender pay gap, certainly. Like, it’s a lucrative gig if you make budget. And, if you really want to be a Ming Moll, I suppose you should have the right to make that choice, without people judging you for it.

Is there really anything wrong with looking hot and flashing the puppies to close a sale to a receptive audience of potential customers? It’s hardly as if it’s unpleasant for the target, in the moment. There doesn’t seem to be any real harm done - except financially.

But the whole hotness/selling thing, however engaging, it seems somewhat demeaning, and at odds with the virtue signalling a lot of carmakers indulge in. (Admittedly many of which go broke by being so woke. I’m looking at you, Holden.) Nor does it seem aligned with the expectations of some among us.

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Times change

In the 1970s, all you needed to do to sell a car was drape a hot chick in a swimsuit prominently over it. Such an easy formula. So many permutations. This has - admittedly - been a staple for some time.

But it wasn’t all bikinis - this one in particular is preposterously demeaning, through the lens of currency. Can you imagine a carmaker doing this today? There would be a riot. (You’ll have to read the text to get the full impact.) 

This was a legitimate advertisement at the time.

But in fairness, the car industry was not the only one doing this, back then. Way to sell coffee, Chase & Sanborn. We have come rather a long way in the context of behaviour deemed acceptable, or emphatically otherwise.

So, against this Technicolour backdrop, I wonder - I sincerely wonder - why this somewhat sexist corner of the retail landscape has escaped scrutiny. 

Is it simply because the Ming Moll is so damn effective? Industries do tend to value return on investment above all else. And the Ming Moll - the right Ming Moll - remains, absolutely, a licence for a dealership to print money. 

Anyway, it seems to me that the persistence of the Ming Moll in the face of societal reforms, is a gift, editorially. This standard operating practice of the industry deserves to have the piss taken out of it endlessly, in my view. And, superficially, they are somewhat pleasant to look at, which is of course why Ming Molls exist. 

Let me know what you think, in the comments below. Especially if you’re a chick. Especially if you’re a Ming Moll. Are you pro Ming Moll, or opposed? Do try to keep it clean.

Have your say