Spying on generation vee Automakers’ top secrets don’t stay secrets for long CAN YOU imagine a car decked out with uneven stripes, prototypes to remote places where gi polka dots, and masking tape? What about a car with the temperatures are extreme, such bulky and unprofessionally installed spoilers, mismatched 5 eet octhen ‘Ouer ner wheels, and yes, even mixed colors? cold-weather testing). You might Sure, we do come across eccen- think that tbe photographers tric people driving strange cars Davi a 92 r ou 1992 323 PROTEGE SE ; , would hesitate before braving ex- from time to time, but [I’m not treme temperatures of -50° and talking about these cars. + 50°. I'm referring to “‘top-secret’’ 7 ; Well, it’s interesting to note prototype vehicles that engineers that most spy photos are actually evaluate on public reads. taken at these testing sites, where in order to minimize the poten- the vehicles are lightly disguised. tial for someone to point and say, “Hey, that looks like the next generation Honda Accord!,’’ automakers disguise prototypes with elaborate cover-ups, hoping that the public will not notice what's under the camouflage. It’s actually a tricky operation; trying to physically test these vehicles out on regular roads while making sure that no one snaps photographs of the vehicles at the same time. Since some prototypes are taken out of the secured and covered engineering centres as early as three years before the official in- troduction, it’s extremely impor- tant that the shape and appear- ance of the car be kept secret. Otherwise, any innovative design could be quickly copied by one of the competitors. ’ Who takes these photos, any- _way? There are a number of well- known. automotive spy photographers that specialize in , taking scocp photos of the up- coming models, such as the Ger- man photographer Hans G. ‘Lehman and Popular Mechanics’ Jim Dunne. - These people will do practically - anything to get just one shot of ‘the prototype to share with the public. “1 think it’s unfair for the ‘automakers, though, since they spend.millions of dollars on new ‘model. development and certainly deserve some protection from premature exposure, ° ~ As a matter of fact, automakers -are so scared of these sneaky photographers that they have of- ‘feted ‘‘monetary.” compensation” - im return for an agreement not to” take spy photos of their cars. ©. But these photographers aren't ° OVERDRIVE so éasily influenced. Even with an offer of as much as $100,000, Dunne and Lehman haven’t stopped taking pictures of the disguised prototypes. Japan even has a magazine call- ed New Model Magazine X, which devotes its entire magazine to scoop information and spy photographs. Every month, this magazine somehow manages to collect a library of sneak photos from around the world. For you ‘car nuts whose curiosi- ‘ty of the forthcoming vehicles is stronger than your appetite for tonight’s dinner, you can order the magazine from Sophia Japa- nese Bookstore, located on Nelson and Granville Street downtown (just: a reminder, folks, the entire magazine is in Japanese, not English). European magazines such as Car and some of the magazines from Germany also devote quite a bit of space to revealing the latest top-secrets. There are a number of places in Vancouver that carry European magazines, but 1 find the best selection at the Mayfair News, situated on Broadway near Gran- ville Street. Automakers routinely ship the ADDITIONAL |: DISCOUNT Off related parts § - with this ad. 10% Peopte like Lehman, believe it or not, patiently wait in their own disguise temperatures for hours until they can capture the “prey”? with their cameras. in these extreme Aside from these testing sites, other sources of spy photos in- clude suppliers’ shops. Because suppliers get to work with the prototypes during the de- velopment stages, they often have a prototype at one of their shops — sometimes in a wide-open area accessible to anyone who happens to be passing by. Some of the photos in New Model Magazine X are cbviously taken inside a building, supplier engineers are most likely to be working with the prototypes. where Interestingly, spy shots actually serve an important purpose for the automakers, Their analysts use them in the strategic planning of their own future products against competitors. - Maybe this explains why so many new cars look alike. 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