Although a great deal of today’s vehicle proving can be conducted in advance by computer simulation or on the test bench, there inevitably comes the day when all test results have to be validated, and the car must be released into its natural habitat – the road.
Two years ago, it was the Insignia’s turn, Opel’s new mid-size class car that makes its world premiere on July 22. It was its first test drive on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife – a day that camouflage experts at Opel had been meticulously preparing for months. With a highly attractive, completely new body line and sculptural design, the Vectra’s successor is set to cause a sensation in the mid-size class – but surprises only work if they are not revealed beforehand.
The team responsible for camouflaging prototypes began making their preparations for the test phase when the new car was still just computer simulations and clay models. Together with chief designers and engineers, the team established which of the car’s characteristic lines should be kept hidden the longest from prototype paparazzi.
Together, they developed a “facelift” for the upcoming model that would disguise the prototypes as optimally as possible. One of the variants had an especially elegantly flowing rear section, for instance, so a pronounced spoiler was designed to mask it. A wooden model was built as a cast to form the plastic camouflage parts needed for the up to 200 test cars that have to be disguised in the run-up to series production.
Covers for other characteristic body components were also designed and produced using the same process. As always, the first prototypes were brought to a workshop in a particularly well protected area of the plant to be disguised as the initial test cars. |
