Masters of disguise

Testing secret new cars used to involve nothing more than very light subterfuge. The original Mini, for example, ran around for a full two years before it was announced wearing little more than the grille from an Austin A35 to throw people off the scent.

The Alfa Romeo 1750 Berlina of the 1960s was brazenly driven around Milan ahead of launch with just a Rover badge on the nose to confuse people of its origins while, in the same era, Rover itself simply sprayed test cars an anonymous grey to blend into the average urban environment. Though when it did this for prototypes of the P6, someone realised this paint rather suited the shape and City Grey became an actual production colour.

In the 1950s and ’60s any obfuscation measures applied to prototypes seemed to be there just to deter members of the public from looking any closer. Even when spy photography started to become a fixture in magazines, car makers made some pretty low key efforts to disguise important future models. So pre-prod Alfasuds wore BMW kidneys screwed to their fronts while prototypes of the first Volkswagen Golf were lightly made up to look like Fiat 127s.