The 2023 Rolls-Royce Spectre: mobile billboard or camo?
Range Rover Evoque cabrio shrouded in Keith Haring-style camo
Unusual Viking helmet disguise for the 2019 ARES Panther
The age-old blanket disguise method, shrouding an Audi A7 prototype
The most popular camouflage among German car makers: the psychedelic swirl
And the Italian way: a bit of light gaffer tape masks this Alfa Romeo 8C
The Darth Vader option: matt black hides this Honda Civic Type R prototype
But Honda is also partial to a bit of 1990s student poster psychedelia
Just to prove how discretion is not a part of disguise any more, Mini adds a cheeky day-glo yellow to its swirling camo
The British way? Just let the snow cover your Aston Martin prototype on winter test!
Toyota dabbled with a spin-a-disc look when it covered this Auris with CD motifs!
Cheekily, Bentley stuck a Mercedes grille on the front of this 2012 Flying Spur prototype to put spies off the scent
And now with the Bentayga SUV Bentley has started using its camo as a mobile billboard
Similarly, Land Rover has seen the promotional benefit of the vinyl wrap disguise; here the Disco Sport shows off its three rows of seats
Sometimes manufacturers hide future models under other vehicles; here’s an early Audi A1 stepping out as a VW Polo
Similarly, McLaren disguised early MP4-12Cs as Ultima track cars during testing
The greyed-out, untuned-TV look espoused by a Land Rover Discovery Sport prototype
Meanwhile, sister brand Jaguar sometimes uses the chessboard look, seen masking the F-type 4wd’s bonnet
Don’t forget the riot van look – pioneered here on a Suzuki Swift prototype, seemingly with barred windows to keep nosey photographers out!
BMW was an early pioneer of the swirly-whirly black-and-white look for the trompe-l’oeiul effect
Meanwhile, over in France Renault picks an infinite puzzle look to hide its new Clio
Hyundai is seen here using the black bra effect – muzzling the front of its refreshed i40
It’s Ford again, championing the 1990s drug-addled student poster look again. If you stare really hard at this Focus prototype, what do you see?
And finally, it’s Vauxhall, using the little-used flock wallpaper look. Or is that one of James May’s shirts?
The new 2023 Hyundai Santa Fe – complete with nappy disguise!
The time we wrapped our European ed Georg Kacher in BMW camo
► How car makers disguise prototypes► The 21 different types we’ve spotted
► Gallery: a car camo masterclass!
Car manufacturers go to great lengths to keep their future models under wraps – but automotive camouflage has evolved into quite an art form in recent years.
The disguises have increasingly become part of the marketing message; the prevalence of smartphones means that the chances of a secret prototype being spotted have mushroomed in recent years, so the car makers have taken advantage of that visibility.
Cue the recent Rolls-Royce Spectre prototypes being wrapped in a marketing message (see above). It’s as much about being seen as being hidden…
Traditional car prototype disguises
Since CAR started papping secret prototypes back in the 1960s, in our formative years, the industry has come a long way. Masking tape, vinyl sheets, black panels, zig-zag disruptive pattern material… you name it, and engineers have tried it to keep their precious new vehicles under wraps. Flick through our gallery above to spot the most common trends.
From the ARES Panther Viking helmet wrap to the Keith Haring camo adorning the 2016 Range Rover Evoque Convertible (above), there’s a host of interesting visuals adorning most modern prototypes.
Why car makers disguise their future models
There comes a point in every car’s development where the engineers have to bite the bullet and test prototypes on the public roads; there’s only so much that a CAD programme can tell them and the real world plays an important part in most new-car programmes.
From the psychedelic swirls of vinyl wraps, designed to distract prying lenses and eyeballs away from the curvature of metal panelwork, to the fully amorphous blanket preferred by certain French companies – this is an intriguing area of the business. Some, like Bentley, have even tried to make their prototypes look like a rival manufacturer’s models; in this case, the Continental family masquerading as a Merc S-Class!
Flick through our spy photo gallery above to see more unusual car disguises.
You’ll find Toyotas covered in what look like compact discs, a Hyundai sporting a black bra and an Alfa 8C covered in gaffer tape. In a postmodern twist, the camo is in fact now often the story – some pre-production engineering hacks increasingly look like mobile billboards and advertising hoardings.
Although maybe not this Audi A7 (below). This Hallowe’en special from a few years back still makes us laugh!
Click here to read more about prototype camouflage – where you can find out what happened when we wrapped our European editor Georg Kacher in BMW’s disruptive pattern material (below).
Now you see him, now you don’t…
Keyword: The art of car disguise: prototype camouflage decoded