Making Sense of Auto Parts Tina, China’s Viral Pitchwoman

Last week, as part of my regular Thursday afternooning as an automotive journalist, my internet browsing pointed me to a young Chinese woman who, in very broken English and very catchy singsong, invited me to visit her engine factory. 

I learned from this 30-second video that there were, in fact, many engines in her factory, that they were perfect, and that they were quite complete. Even better, she offered friendly assistance to help me find what I was looking for. 

Astonished by what I’d just watched, and only slightly dissuaded by the fact that I currently have no ongoing project requiring a powerplant, I watched it again. Then I thought of Glenn Arlt, Hagerty’s long-retired parts-finder, the man who helped countless Hagerty members of yore track down the often very specific parts they needed for their own projects. I pasted the link into our Media Team chat with the teaser: “Hagerty’s new parts finder?”

“I don’t even need to click this to know it’s Auto Parts Tina,” Eric said. 

I was dumbfounded. “Is she a thing?” I asked. 

“Oh yeah, she rules,” Nate said. “Catchy tune for sure.”

It is a catchy tune, I realized. And she does kind of rule.

That night at dinner, I was telling my kids about the video, and even before I’d clicked on the thumbnail, my 14-year-old piped in. “Yeah Dad,” she said. “She’s been around for like, forever.” The invalidating disdain in that child’s voice, lemme tell you…

Look, I try to stay current on the trends in my field. I pay attention when Sajeev and Andrew share the wild stories of Houston’s car culture. I’ve written on the Carolina Squat. I’ve watched my fair share of weird videos on Saudi drifting and Icelandic Formula Offroad. I’ve been to a combine derby. Which is all to say I’m not averse to continuing education. So I Googled this Auto Parts Tina to learn more.

Her Instagram page seems to have the full repository—or complete factory, if you will—with 146 videos and 215,000 followers. Her TikTok page has 108 videos, largely the same, and 59K followers, while the YouTube page, with 122 videos, has only 2800 subscribers. There’s also a subreddit, r/AutopartsTina, dedicated to “the singing auto parts advertising lady.” 

Beyond her changing attire, there is little variety from video to video—the schtick just works. That said, when Tina is not singing her sales pitch, she just dances in front of her engines, and both styles of video are accompanied by fun, bouncy camera work that could, it must be said, drive one to develop a migraine. 

She often refers to her viewers as “boss,” and there seems to be genuine affection for Tina from all the bosses in the comments. “Bopping to this,” wrote one boss. “Much like an engine in Tina’s factory I now feel very complete,” wrote another. Many followers praise the way she constructs her rhymes. She really does make her broken English work in her favor. “Rhyming ‘complete’ with ‘mileage’ by pronouncing it ‘mill-e-a-gee’ is … how Eminem rhymes impossible words,” wrote one boss. “Voice of an angel. Voice of our generation,” wrote another. 

The generational thing is an interesting one. I’m old, I guess, and very much not on Instagram or TikTok, so I guess it makes sense I’ve gone so long without a proper introduction to Tina from China. But the way she cleverly captures your attention and has become something of a cultural phenomenon certainly reminds me of the pioneer in the realm of the automotive sales pitch: the late Calvin Coolidge Worthington. 

Very much a man from another time, Cal Worthington became famous for the radio and TV commercials he created to advertise his West Coast auto dealerships. “Here’s Cal Worthington and his dog Spot,” they began. Except Spot wasn’t a dog. Sometimes, Spot was a chimpanzee. Or a lion. Or a tiger. Or a goat. Or an American Brahman cow. Or simply Cal standing on the wings of a barrel-rolling biplane as it soared above California. Spot was whatever Cal Worthington wanted him to be. The man understood spectacle. 

It helped that the jingle was catchy, too, set more or less to “If You’re Happy and You Know It:”

If you need a better car, go see Cal.
For the best deal by far, go see Cal.
If you want your payments low, if you wanna save some dough,
Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal.

But, just like Spot, the lyrics changed, too…

If you want a better buy, go see Cal.
You’re the guy we satisfy, go see Cal.
Give a new car to your wife, she will love you all her life,
Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal.

Worthington claimed to have sold more than a million cars during his lifetime. He was the nation’s largest Dodge dealer for a time in the 1960s, and at the height of his success owned more than two dozen dealerships. You can bet his charismatic approach to the business influenced that success greatly.

Auto Parts Tina is no lone wolf, but rather the charismatic face of Guangzhou Xinwangda Automotive Parts Co., Ltd., which has been in the parts business since 2006, according to the company’s storefront on Alibaba. But I’d argue far fewer people care about the actual business than they do about Tina the crooner. Whether or not she finds the same level of success for her engine factory, which is really more of a warehouse, as Worthington did in his day, is anyone’s guess. But as long as the tune is catchy and the lyrics hit, do we really care?

This boss certainly doesn’t.