The ongoing crackdown on prurience and moral turpitude in China means this year's Shanghai Auto Show, due to run in April, will be less revealing than ever, at least as far as young models is concerned.

"This marks a return to the car show idea itself. We come to see the cars, not the models. If we want to buy a car, normally we bring the whole family. If the children see those models wearing revealing costumes, they are very worried like the parents," said one commentator, Youyou Deziyun, on the Sina Weibo microblog site.

However, a fellow online author, Daozhezhang, disagreed, saying: “Cancelling car show models only because of their revealing clothes is like giving up food for fear of choking. This is conservative behaviour and it shows the incompetence of the management.”

One model said the costumes were decided by the exhibitors. “Who likes to be exposed? But the less we wear the more money we make,” she said.