What do women want (on wheels)?

'I bet you pick up a lot of girls in that,’ the man said, looking at the Rolls-Royce Spectre I was standing next to outside a Royal Mail sorting office. It’s a question I get asked a lot, not because I own a Rolls-Royce (I don’t have anywhere to park one), but because I am lucky enough to test many nice cars for this magazine.

The answer to the question is no, I do not ‘pick up a lot of girls in that’, whatever 'that' might be. What I do tend to pick up is a lot of strange men, mostly at petrol stations, who seem convinced the only reason a man might like a nice car is to impress women. I do not doubt that many men have, and will, purchase a supercar for this very reason.

Hearing this question for the 748th time, however, did make me wonder what car a woman might actually find attractive. It’s clear that women do like cars: the highlight of this year’s Monaco Grand Prix was not the race, but pop star Dua Lipa’s sublime Porsche 911 GT3 RS. One of the happiest moments of my life, meanwhile, was racing a mum and her two children in a BMW M4 down the A303. The last time a woman made me scream was when I was a passenger in an M2 CS Racing car going around Goodwood.

There is a taste for speed, the exotic and the loud. However, a woman’s taste is perhaps more nuanced than that of the average heterosexual male. There may be more to what makes a car attractive than what it looks like, who makes it or how fast it can go.

In a rare fit of journalistic effort, I decided to find out the answer. I conducted a thorough investigation, which involved sending some emails, WhatsApps and one Instagram story to see what, exactly, women want on wheels.

‘There is nothing more attractive than an old Land Rover: mud splattered, pub bound, inexplicably elegant’
Mimi Palmer (lawyer)

‘As with men, you want to see a good mix of practicality, style and a touch of fun. A well-cared-for and clean car says more than any badge on the bonnet’
Olivia Hughes (communications director)

‘I don’t think it’s about the car (partly because I am dating a man who drives a Nissan Juke), but more about how a man drives. I want a level of confidence that stops just short of being a jerk. You can tell a lot about a man from the way he handles a car. I don’t love men who prefer automatics, because that feels a bit wet’
Sophia Money-Coutts (author)

‘I would be tempted by an electric campervan that’s easy to park and has reclining front seats for napping on long journeys. Any car that’s good for naps and is tidy. Tidy, but not immaculate — that’s a red flag’
Annabel Dolphin (my girlfriend)

‘I find supercars to be an active ick and indicative of a low male ego. A classic car such as a Jaguar E-Type has elegance, but can be quite uncomfortable. I am happy to sit in any car that has a heated seat’
Lady Henrietta Stanley (strategy consultant)

‘A classic vintage Jaguar will make me consider even completely unsuitable men. How I get kidnapped is by someone offering me a ride in a 1989 Jaguar XJS’
Susanne Madsen (writer and editor)

‘You’re one of those guys who likes to shine his machine/You make me take off my shoes before you let me get in/I can’t believe you kiss your car good night/Now come on, baby, tell me, you must be joking, right?’
Shania Twain (country-music star)

‘Absolutely no personalised number plates’
Lizzie Baxter (public relations executive)

‘I used to sit on Lamborghini’s female advisory board and have a racing licence, so it used to be all about performance and powerful styling. These days, however, I’m very conscious of my carbon footprint—so the smallest, lightest electric cars are those that float my boat’
Erin Baker (editorial director of Autotrader)

‘Old leather and smells of gasoline and adventures. I want to put miles on it; eat my sandwich and drink my lemon soda in Italy. I want to look at it and know we created memories. That we lived in freedom. Minimum 200hp. I need to squeak when you hit 6,000rpm’
Lea Wuest (co-founder of Pizza Pasta Porsche)

‘I don’t think my taste in cars correlates to my taste in men, but when it comes to the former, the older the better. Modern-day cars are too easy to drive and too easy to fall asleep in; you feel entirely disconnected from the experience (I’m still talking about the cars, not the men). In an ideal world, it’s a Mercedes Pagoda’
Rosie Paterson (Digital Content Editor and Travel Editor)

‘I’m happy to don a headscarf in an E-Type, the most elegant of all cars, but a proper Land Rover Defender, handled confidently, but with nonchalance, with a tow bar to get us to the meet and a dog on the back seat wins my heart’
Octavia Pollock (Chief Sub-Editor)

‘If the fella can drive, they could make a rusty digger attractive’ Tati Reed (content creator)