Holden with the top down too hot for Americans to handle

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

A worker at the Detroit motor show got so hot and bothered over the cartoon-like drawings of women on the side of a Holden exhibit that he forced the Australian company to airbrush the artwork.

The Holden Sandman panel van, a joint effort with street-wear company Mambo, is a colourful one-off celebration of Australia's beach culture of the 1970s.

On the sides are painted updated versions of the traditional panel van murals along with what Mambo calls "beach and bush goddess" themes.

The bush theme shows a scantily clad woman, the beach scene an obviously nude woman kneeling on the sand.

The van was unveiled at the Sydney Motor Show in November and flown to America this month to be part of Holden parent General Motors' stand. But when it was being unloaded at the show site in Detroit, a worker said he was offended by the women in the scenes.

He made such a fuss that General Motors was forced to cover them up. "Apparently it had to be done to avoid the threat of industrial action," said Holden design chief Michael Simcoe.

A Detroit artist changed the bush scene and added a grass skirt and a Hawaiian flower lei to the woman on the beach.

A Mambo executive told reporters he found the modifications hilarious. "We were bemused by it. On the one hand the Americans produce pornography for the world and on the other they are concerned about a bare bosom painted on the side of a van."

Simcoe said the idea for the van began as a sketch by a young designer. "We liked the idea - not as a serious project, but because we saw it as a chance for Holden to take a lighthearted look at the past and itself.

"But the Sandman didn't get off the ground until we conceived the idea of sharing it with Mambo.

"As I see it we have two Australian legends getting together and having fun. Everyone who worked on it got a big creative kick out of it - and it shows."