The Gender War In Cars--Ferrari vs. Mini

SANTA MONICA, CA (WWJ) -- A new study shows that men and women—as a rule—have very different vehicle preferences.

"Female car buyers really gravitated toward smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and crossovers," said Kristen Andersson, Senior Analyst at TrueCar.com, which did the study. "It was the complete opposite for male buyers, who preferred either a fast and sporty vehicle with distinctive curb appeal or a big vehicle, like a large truck or SUV."

The most mach brand was Ferrari. Mini topped the list for women buyers. The full study can be found by following this link.

There have been some changes compared to surveys done in previous years.

"A lot of the brands that have been more dramatically skewed toward male preference are now less so," said Jesse Toprak, TrueCar.com's vice president of Market Intelligence. "Those are mostly the domestic brands."

That could be good news, because women previously had been more attracted to import brands.

Toprak said it's generally helpful for brands to have a close balance between male and female buyers. When a brand becomes thought of as too feminine or too masculine, Toprak says it could hurt sales.

"A brand or model can become too polarizing," he said. "That's a good news or bad news scenario for automakers. You want to get attention from certain groups. But when you do that, you might turn the rest of the groups off."

The Volvo S40 was the individual car that appealed most to women. That's a list that had been lead by the Volkswagen Beetle. But the Beetle has been redone for 2012 and that imbalance was taken into account.

"They change the design to be a little more aggressive" he said. "They have a black version. There's actually a version that's quite masculine looking."