This paper uses the sensibility engineering method to find the model of automobile most appealing to buyers in the 4th and 5th tier cities of China. Samples of class A & A0 cars were shown to 96 subjects in those cities to investigate their responses in relation to the concepts 'modern' and 'smart'. The result shows that even though men tend to be more sensitive to automobile models in general than women are, both genders showed similar responses to specific models when they were asked to identify a model 'magnificent', 'modern', 'lively', 'smart' or 'cute'. This implies that despite the gender differences in terms of aesthetic sensitivity, both men and women share similar taste in relation to the appearance of cars. Apart from aesthetics, however, men tend to pay a greater attention to the details of design and material used for the cars, while women tend to pay attention to higher priced and better looking cars.

• Hyung-Kun Yoon(Shanghai Jiaotong University) Corresponding Author
• Kaili Fu(Graduate School of Design, Shanghai Jiaotong University)
• Junjun Zhou(Graduate School of Design, Shanghai Jiaotong University)
• Tian Zhuo(Graduate School of Design, Shanghai Jiaotong University)