What's the best way to sell a Fiat 500 Abarth Cabrio? Why, paint up a dozen naked women, of course. No strangers to controversy, ad executives at Richards Group dreamed up this unusual idea, hiring local circus performers, artists and contortionists and a renowned body painter to adorn and configure the women into a shape that resembles the Italian muscle car.

Before you start crying, "Photoshop!," understand that it took 30 to 40 people working together as a team to create this complicated shot, which body painter Craig Tracy said was "the most ambitious and the most interesting and the most fun shoot I've ever been on."

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For reference, here's the car itself:

The elaborate photo, accompanied with the tagline "Made of pure muscle," is a print ad for the upcoming "Body Issue" of ESPN the Magazine. According to the ad's makers, the team "spent days" organizing the poses of the women, mapping exactly where they would be located in the shot, and then painting their bodies and creating this photograph which many might construe as a work of art.

Others might call it yet another objectification of women.

Dallas-based Richards Group has traveled down this sexy road before with a video spot it created in 2011, featuring a saucy Italian-speaking woman who is the object of a man's fantasies and suddenly turns into a Fiat 500 Abarth as soon as the man leans over to kiss her.

While this print ad might seem to be completely original, there have been similar efforts, such as an ad created for the Government of South Australia for a road safety campaign, pointed out by a commenter on Carscoops:

Take a look at the video embedded below to see how this difficult Fiat project was executed — and watch with care because, with the nudity, some of it might be not suitable for work.

Even though the painting and contortions result in a rather distorted version of the car, I think this is a creative and artistic effort. What do you think? Is this an objectification of women, a work of art, both or neither? Let us know in the comments.

Photos courtesy Fiat and the Government of South Australia, video courtesy YouTube, Fiat USA