DAVID GREENE, HOST:
At events like this week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the car is the obvious star. But the shows also have a history of featuring women. Decades ago, models would lay across car hoods, dressed provocatively - some even singing. Well, those days are gone. From Detroit, here's NPR's Daniel Hajek.
DANIEL HAJEK, BYLINE: Back in the '70s at auto shows across the country, you could find Anita Mitzel wearing an extravagant gown, reciting scripted monologues in front of a shiny Cadillac slowly spinning on a turntable. All these years later, she can still recite those slogans.
ANITA MITZEL: Longer in stride, wider in stance and cat-sure on standard, steel-belted radials. The other one was, Jeep wrote the book on four-wheel drive. I probably said that about 18,000 times.
HAJEK: Sometimes, her speeches would last for 10 minutes. She didn't have much time to prepare, but she had her whole routine down.
MITZEL: Get in in the morning, I would put all the literature out, turn on the lights, turn on the sound system, get up, say my three-minute spiel, get back down, refill the literature racks. It was kind of a fun time.
HAJEK: And it was all about entertainment.
MITZEL: I think that's what people expected. And sometimes people said that they came to the show just to talk to or see the models.
HAJEK: Hedy Popson worked the car-show circuit back in the '80s. Her instructions were simple.
HEDY POPSON: We were referred to as pretty much the spin-and-grin girls. We would be on the turntable. We would spin, smile and enhance the vehicle.
HAJEK: The thing is, some of these women knew about the cars, but unless they were narrators like Anita Mitzel, they weren't allowed to talk about them. That's what Margery Krevsky noticed when she first visited an auto show. One of her friends was posing by a car.
MARGERY KREVSKY: So I said, tell me about this car. She said, I can't tell you about the car, I'm not allowed. But the designer left his notes in the glove compartment. So I'm going to take those. In 20 minutes, I have a coffee break. I'll tell you about the car. And that's where the idea was made.
HAJEK: Krevsky's idea was to give women like her friend a bigger role at car shows, and by the '90s, car show models had a new job title - product specialists. And the role of women at auto shows drastically changed. Hedy Popson now runs an agency with Krevsky called Productions Plus, which represents over 700 product specialists, both women and men. It's like a mini-industry.
POPSON: Margery helped develop that, actually with Nissan Motor Corporation. They were the first corporation to say, we want these people to do a little bit more.
KREVSKY: The car became the true star, and we were the second bananas as product specialists.
HAJEK: Instead of spin-and-grin, it turned into weeks of training on the cars' specs. Product specialists, dressed professionally, know their vehicles from top to bottom.
REBEKAH SKIVER: The Nissan Leaf - this one is actually really cool.
HAJEK: Rebekah Skiver is a product specialist for Nissan. This week, she's in Detroit at the auto show. She interacts with consumers and listens for feedback on the cars. She's the eyes and ears of the brand.
SKIVER: We write an extensive show report after each show that we submit in. So it's all documented.
HAJEK: And unlike dealerships, there's no pressure here. Skiver's not trying to make a direct sale. Hedy Popson says that creates customers.
POPSON: When before it was very much like going to a museum - looking at a car, looking at a pretty girl, moving on - now it's something that brings people in because there's a result. They're actually going to buy a vehicle.
HAJEK: Product specialists are a vital part of the industry. And today, their job is strictly business. Daniel Hajek, NPR News, Detroit.