Aircraft perverts and alien conspiracy loons have Area 51. But if you’re a petro-nerd and want to feel that same sense of mystery and behind-the-barbed-wire intrigue, you have to go somewhere else – car test tracks.
I love a car test track. Or at least, I love peering at them on Google Maps. From my kitchen table I can fly over Volvo’s huge Hällered development centre, an hour from Gothenburg and so deep into the countryside even the Street View car seems to have given up many kilometres from the entrance. Maybe next I can zoom in on the densely packed tracks of BMW’s lesser-spotted Miramas test centre, an hour west of Aix-en-Provence. It’s 1000km from the mothership in Munich, but its pleasant climate allows year-round testing of M4s and X5s. And indeed Morgans, which are permitted to use the place under the terms of the company’s engine supply deal, reportedly causing a queue of German engineers clamouring to have a go in the cars every time they’re in town. Maybe then I’ll take an aerial gander at the mind-bogglingly massive General Motors proving ground in Milford, Michigan, a 4000 acre site that last year celebrated its 100th birthday and boasts almost 150 miles of roads as well as its own fire service and medical centre.
Obviously you can’t see anything very secret or interesting from a zoomed in Google satellite photo. But, sadly, you can’t see much that’s secret or interesting if you’re on the ground either because, unsurprisingly, most car company test tracks are really, really secure.
