'Hot' sauce: now even condiments can be politically incorrect.

A bright-yellow roadster is broken down on a desert highway. A curvaceous blond in an evening gown stands next to it, hiking her dress up to reveal thigh-high stockings, her thumb stuck out to attract a ride. A similarly clad redhead sits on the car's trunk, with the words "Bad Girls in Heat" emblazoned beneath her.

The cover of a dime-store novel? Poster from a vintage stag film?

Nope, it's one of PepperTown USA's "politically incorrect" hot sauce labels.

Bad Girls in Heat is one of six politically incorrect hot sauces produced by Van Nuys-based PepperTown, a company started two years ago by husband-and-wife team Bill and Debbie Sussex.

The line of hot sauces, all of which feature '40s-style pin-up girls on their labels, have such eyebrow-raising names as Kitten's Big Banana, Fifi's Nasty Little Secret and Sultan's Main Squeeze.

"Hot sauce is a very visual product, and there are so many options," said Bill Sussex, whose title at the fledgling company is Grand Taster. "We decided to go with something very visually striking."

In March 1996, when the Sussexes started selling their hot sauce, which is manufactured for PepperTown at a food-processing plant in Riverside, hot sauce was just starting to become a designer condiment. Stores selling nothing but hot sauce were opening, and mom-and-pop hot sauce companies were popping up across the country.

The Sussexes decided to set their hot sauce apart by avoiding such marketing cliches as "hotter than hell" and "ass-kicking," which many of the newly introduced hot sauces were touting.

"We wanted to get away from the whole Beelzebub type of thing," Bill said. "We thought our opportunities would be greater if we did something different."

Aside from the unusual labels. PepperTown's sauces are not as spicy as the hottest of hot sauces, and are made with ingredients one doesn't typically associate with hot sauce: pineapples, mangos, bananas, lime juice, raisins, papayas, pumpkins, apples and cucumbers. The recipes were developed by the Sussexes, who describe themselves as longtime "pepperheads" - connoisseurs of hot sauce.

By the Sussexes' reasoning, the less spicy, fruit-based hot sauces would sell faster than the "hotter than hell"-type sauces that many customers might find overwhelming.

The unusual recipes and labels seem to be paying off. PepperTown's sauces have won awards from Fancy Food Magazine, Fiery Foods Magazine and Chile Pepper magazine.

The two-person company is staffed full-time by Debbie Sussex, whose past experience was in marketing and product development for a window-coverings company. Bill does PepperTown work during his off-hours. His full-time day job is doing post-production work on promotional spots aired to tout Fox Broadcasting Co. shows.

His connections in the entertainment industry helped the couple and their hot sauces land a scene in an upcoming Eddie Murphy film, "The Holy Man," which the Walt Disney Co. plans to release later this year. In the scene, the Sussexes are seen hawking their hot sauces on a television channel similar to the Home Shopping Network.

Bill said the "Holy Man" appearance - as long as it doesn't end up on the cutting-room floor - could help PepperTown become successful quickly.

"Who knows what that could do to us," he said. "It's a real gift horse."

Being a relatively new company, Peppertown has yet to turn a profit. In 1996, the company generated $83,000 in revenues, but due to the cost of equipment purchases, having labels designed and other start-up costs, the company lost about $51,000, said Jack Kaplan, PepperTown's accountant.

Last year, the company did a bit better, bringing in $99,000 in revenues, but still lost between $10,000 and $15,000.

"Hopefully in 1998 we're going to see a turnaround," he said. "I know (Bill Sussex) would be thrilled to death if in less than three years it could turn a profit."

Kaplan said the Sussexes have invested close to $100,000 in the company so far, meaning several years of profits will likely be needed for the couple to recoup their investment.

While PepperTown's racy labels seem to be developing a following, as reflected by rising sales, the Sussexes have experienced some resistance to them, particularly from upscale, gourmet stores and mainstream grocery stores, many of which don't want bottles featuring scantily clad women on their shelves.

Rather than shun these potential customers, PepperTown a couple of months ago started manufacturing its sauces with a less provocative label. It features an elephant playing a harmonica and monkeys hanging off the back of a pineapple truck, images loosely based on encounters the couple had while on a trip to Thailand.

The same image is, featured on the labels of the politically correct versions of all six sauces. And the saucy names have been tamed down. For example, the politically correct version of Fifi's Nasty Little Secret is sold as Hawaiian Hot Sauce.

In keeping with their love for wild animals, the Sussexes plan to donate a portion of revenues from the politically correct hot sauces - about $2 per case - to the Shambala Preserve, a wild-animal preserve in Acton run by actress Tippi Hedren. PepperTown sells a case of its sauces for anywhere from about $54 to $75, depending on whether the buyer is a retailer or wholesale distributor, and the number of cases being purchased.

North Hills-based De Vries Imports & Distributors, which recently began distributing both versions of PepperTown's hot sauces, is trying to get the tamer version of the company's sauces into Gelson's Markets and other mainstream stores.

Colleen Cox, marketing researcher at De Vries, said the distributor chose to carry PepperTown sauces both for their taste and the striking labels on the politically incorrect versions of the sauces. "It's made with different kinds of ingredients than your traditional hot sauces, and the labeling is really cool," she said.

Dianne Dallas, president of British Columbia-based Lost Continent Hot Sauce Traders, which distributes PepperTown sauces to about 100 stores and restaurants in Canada, said Bad Girls in Heat is one of her 10 best-selling hot sauces.

"Part of it is the label in the hot sauce business," Dallas said. "So if you have a really good sauce, and you have a good label, then you have a good product and it sells."