'Miss Tuning' Visits PA for Photo Shoot

By Sandra Rhodes
Visitor & Member Services
Allegheny National Forest Visitors Bureau

Start your engines! Sites within the Allegheny National Forest region have been selected as the stunning backdrops for a calendar photo shoot that includes a variety of modified vehicles and the German model “Miss Tuning”.

Kristin Zippel was crowned Miss Tuning 2010 during the Tuning World Bodensee event in Germany. Part of becoming Miss Tuning includes an exclusive photo shoot for a 2011 calendar. This year, organizers selected the Great Lakes region to photograph iconic sites as backdrops for the calendar. Last year’s photo shoot was in the British Virgin Islands.

During a photo scouting trip last month, representatives from Messe Friedrichshafen, the Great Lakes of North of America, and the ANF Visitors Bureau toured the area visiting locations as possible sites to be featured in the upcoming calendar. Toby McCarrick, executive director of the Great Lakes of North America (GLNA) - a marketing consortium that promotes travel throughout the Great Lakes region to the UK and Germany markets, coordinated the tour working with a variety of state and regional tourism promotion agencies within the GLNA states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Three locations were selected within the ANF region to be featured. They are Glendorn, Marilla Reservoir and the Zippo/Case Museum. In addition, the Zippo Car is one of the featured vehicles as well as a modified Jeep for the photo shoot at Marilla Reservoir.

“This is a great example of working together with the Great Lakes North America to promote the area,” said Linda Devlin, executive director of the Allegheny National Forest Visitors Bureau. “We are very excited to have our local sites selected. Our agency works with the Pennsylvania Department of Tourism, and a variety of tour operators, travel agents, local sites and tourism providers to promote Pennsylvania as a tourism destination for both independent leisure travelers and group tours.”

Additional sites selected for the 2011 calendar include Tiger’s Stadium, The Renaissance Center, Motown, and the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Marblehead Lighthouse, and Cedar Point in Ohio. Other areas selected within Pennsylvania include Erie Speedway and Presque Isle.

The Tuning World Bodensee in Germany is an annual show that attracts more than 100,000 visitors throughout Europe, including 152 car clubs.

The Miss Tuning Calendar is printed in limited edition of 1,500 copies.

Pictured, Miss Tuning Kristin Zippel from Germany poses next to a Jeep at the Marilla Reservoir Wednesday. One of the prizes in becoming Miss Tuning is a calendar shoot. This year, organizers picked the Great Lakes region to photograph iconic sites as backdrops for the calendar. Three sites in the Allegheny National Forest region were selected.
Photo courtesy of the ANFVB