Mystery Car! Prototype?

[furtech]

Here's the full Flickr set!

Many years ago a friend noticed a car driving alongside us that was covered with taped-on cardboard and paper. He got -very- excited and said that it was a new (un-debuted) model or prototype! I'd seen cars covered up like that before, but (this being L.A.) thought very little of it. Now when I see cars like that I remember my friend's excitement and try to take pics.

On the drive down to see Cirque Berzerk (see my Flickr set), Eric commented that the car next to us had the first full-body bra he'd ever seen on a vehicle. I looked and guessed that this is the new version of the cardboard-and-tape used to hide a new model's lines. We managed to snap a few pics.



I thought I'd post them here to see if any friends are either interested in such things or can tell what this car is.

There were two of them, heading south on I-5 towards downtown L.A. One had a black bra, the other had a brown one. Both had Michigan plates, so maybe Ford/GM/Chrysler? Pictures taken on August 6th, 2009.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?*


[*RIP, J. Hughes}

Comments

hmm's

[camerapup.livejournal.com]

did a little digging and it looks kinda simliar to this car
http://www.automobilemag.com/new_and_future_cars/2010/0808_2010_lincoln_mkt_crossover_spy_shots/index.html

hope that helps. :)

Re: hmm's

[camerapup.livejournal.com]

hmm maybe not quite hard to tell with the bra on the back half.

Re: hmm's

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Thanks! The article is from 2008, but they reference it as the 2010 model. Possible.

[skiefire.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the Brown covered one is the Kia Borrego http://www.kia.com/#/borrego/explore/

(The Kia logo on the wheels gave it away :p )

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Very possible...

[tori04.livejournal.com]

It looks like the 2011 Kia Sportage to me.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Also very possible-- how do you find these sites?!?

The back end particularly looks like it, but they would have made major mods to the windows (back passenger windows).

[gilmorelion.livejournal.com]

The brown-covered one looks to be a Chevy Equinox. (the Kia wheels are likely to throw people off)

[skorzy.livejournal.com]

Checking, neither one is the '10 Equinox. The tail lights and roof rack are wrong. I agree with others that it could be one of the Kia crossovers/small SUV

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Since you just researched this car, I'll take your word on it...

[ruggels.livejournal.com]

I-5 south of the 134

[http://users.livejournal.com/_patches/]

I don't understand why car manufactures even do the "full body bra on prototype vehicles" anymore. It's a pretty big failure if they're trying to be inconspicuous. Cars now all look the same, boring cookie-cutter designs, so why do they even bother trying to hide a slightly redesigned new model? Maybe if it were a car they were going to produce in 20 years from now it would warrants all the fancy bra-ing. :P

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I think the purpose is to create -exactly- the kind of public buzz like this post: get people curious and wondering. Now that I know what to look for (bras and coverings), I keep my eyes open for them-- though this time it was iisaw who noticed them. Thank goodness for rush-hour traffic (or we wouldn't have been able to take pics!).

[vulpesrex.livejournal.com]

I tried to respond to this post the other night, and LJ ate my response, perhaps due to the DDOS attacks that they are trying to weather.

GEneral Motors has at least two facilities in the valley - one occupying a small fraction of the huge space once taken up by their factory in Van Nuys (the bulk of the property has been sold and turned into a gawd-awful shopping center, named "The Plant"), and the other is on Riverside Drive in Burbank, just west of the Pickwick Center. The Burbank facility was meant to be a factory-sponsored training center, for GM Dealer Mechanics and Auto Assemblers (since they don't have a factory in the valley anymore, that part of their mission is essentially ended). One of the things they do at both these facilities is cross-check design assumptiuons, and test prototypes in "real world" con ditions, by driving the hell out of pre-production samples and current production vehicles with various modifications.

I used to live in Burbank, next to the Walt Disney Studios, on Alameda Avenue at Keystone Street; after the daily after-work and Saturday Morning Dog-walks, the apartment manager and I would sit out on the steps of the apartment, facing Alameda, and see these cars with the bras and plastic covers driving by, often the same 4 or 5 cars, every 12 to 15 minutes or so, for HOURS; Tom - tha apartment manager - had worked in the industry when he was younger, and had a beautiful Chevy El Camino SS...In fact, Tom was very much like the Clint Eastwood character in "Gran Torino"...and when the stoplight caused one of these cars to be stopped for a minute across from us, he would point out where the actual car ended, and where styrofoam "padding" extended, to disguise the actual shape of the car.

...And other car manufacturers have similar facilities throughout SoCal, doing the same thing; using city streets in the valley, and the 101/134, the 405 to the 5, and then getting off at Los Feliz and driving through Griffith Park back to Riverside Drive or Victory, or west on the 134 again, over and over and over....

BTW - when GM pulled the plug on the eV1 program, the individual cars were collected and stored at the Riverside Drive facility; you could see them from the Pickwick Center Parking Lot. And then one day, they loaded them all up on car carrier trucks, and hauled 'em off to be crushed.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Wow-- this is a *fantastic* chunk of information!

on Alameda Avenue at Keystone Street

Hey! That's -exactly- the area where my out-of-town friend saw the prototype that I mentioned above all those years ago! We were on our way to Ribs USA and I thought he was going to pop a vein in his excitement. Now I know why we saw it there! L.A. must be a car-geek's dream town, much in the same way that it is for Hollywood/tv/film geeks! You get to see so much just by driving around.

I haven't been to the Pickwick Center for ages (bowling every week). That must have been sad to see all the eV1's and then knowing they'd been hauled off to be trashed. I think this was a huge blunder (both PR and practically) of GM.

Thanks for the post-- I love information like this! You've solved a huge part of a puzzle for me!