The photograph is real, but the identification of the woman pictured as being a teenaged Nancy Pelosi is nothing but a bit of political tomfoolery. As noted at the Along for the Ride blog, this picture was one of a series of photographs taken by LIFE magazine photographer Allan Grant in June 1951 at a promotional event for an automobile/appliance complex in Los Angeles:
In 1951 the Muller Bros., an Oldsmobile-Firestone Tire-Car Wash-Cafe-Body Shop-Home Appliance-Auto Supply Dealer located at Sunset and Ivar in L.A., California, named their complex “The Landing.” With good reason, they had everything you could want on one lot. It was giant compared to most new and used car dealers of the time, [it] even had a control tower. They came up with the idea to hold a beauty contest to celebrate the 3,000,000th car to be pulled through its car wash. Life Magazine was there to photo-document the PR event for the rest of us to look back on. Obviously, all the girls, the winner of the beauty contest, and the car wash winning dude, look pretty happy.
