SUV with all the emblems covered up?

This morning I passed a new-looking SUV on I-75.  I was curious what it was, looked like a new Cherokee or maybe a fancy SRT Dodge thing.  But when I got close enough I noticed every single emblem was covered in black tape.

And there were quite a few, at least 3 on the back, 1-2 on the sides, and the front badge.  All covered in large pieces of black tape.

First job out of the Navy was a car dealership so I'm familiar with various protective coverings.  This was different, just emblems covered, purposefully.

Did I see a new-fangled prototype or something?  (Can't remember the plate, think it was dealer.  Wish I had driven the Crosstrek for the dashcam.)

New Grand Wagoneer?

In reply to Jerry :

Sound like typical activitry from manufacturers.  If you were on I-75 you were just "down the road" from Detroit.  

I spent years working the Downriver (southern Metro) Detroit.  It used to be very common to see Ford prototypes on the road. Thinly disguised and usually tons of electronic gauges added to the top of the dash panel could be seen from the outside of the car.

Was it possibly a Michigan Manufaturers plate?  Sample:

+1 on the prototype viewing.  Or if it's all uncovered, a very late prototype, as the pictures have been released to the public.  But even on those, the emblems are regularly covered or taken off.  No idea why....  For those who that it matters there's some kind of camo, everyone knows who's it is.  It's not as if there's a massive styling revolution.

Here are some internet samples:

Major coverings (baggy clothes):

Stylized covering (hard to tell body lines):

Minor coverage, emblems taped, distinct grille covered:

In reply to John Welsh :

A VW with a PEMS.  Go figure.

I used to see oddball vehicles in the paddock at Waterford Hills. Lots of the racers were engineers with various OEMs and often had the use of pre-production mules for towing. I live about a dozen miles from the Chrysler Proving Grounds and routinely see "disguised" vehicles at the A&W.

In reply to John Welsh :

Hmm looks familiar, remember thinking it didn't look like a typical Ohio dealer plate. 75 South between Dayton and Cincinnati so that checks out.

I remember it had a badge in the center of the hatch, and emblems on the right top and bottom. Side emblems low on the panel, and hard to see the front because it was raining.

I do remember weird headlights like 3-4 large LEDs on either side and high on the front.

I love seeing cool stuff in the Detroit area.  

Also with the manufacturer's plates   

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

I used to see oddball vehicles in the paddock at Waterford Hills. Lots of the racers were engineers with various OEMs and often had the use of pre-production mules for towing. I live about a dozen miles from the Chrysler Proving Grounds and routinely see "disguised" vehicles at the A&W.

I still can't understand the time I saw an Opel 3 door hatchback (Astra?) with manufacturer's tags and about a Bitcoin farm's worth of computer equipment mounted inside.

This was a little bit after the death of Saturn, so it's not like they were evaluating the next Opel to sell at Saturn aka Geo of Europe. (  I thought the SL was awesome)  Not sure what else they were doing with a Euro market car in the US....

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Research.  Most cars you see on the road are powertrain development vehicles, since most chassis stuff actually needs some closed track, and most OEM's have replicas of terrible roads.  So odds are they were doing some work on the powertrain- which may have been planned to go into a US product.

Powertrain work needs all of the variety of roads and conditions around the US- as it's really hard to copy mountain driving in a lab, or the really odd hot driving in the desert... I could go on.  OR it could even be doing live emissions research- like the VW above has a Portable Emissions Measurement System on it- so it's live testing the emissions on real roads.  Which is becoming a really big deal around the world.

edit- just remembered one thing- there's a massive radio tower array along I75 in Ohio- that is also something the OP could have been seeing EM testing.  Or a group of cars heading to Florida for testing or a hilly drive eval in KY and TN....  

In reply to alfadriver :

I have some friends who work at a company up there (has some Ford ties) where they do a lot of that fun stuff, so I get what you're saying.  (One bought a demo car that had been outfitted with all sorts of esoteric measuring equipment and a very precise odometer, for testing fuel economy to high precision)

But even so, I can't fathom what powertrain could have been used in Europe that GM would have wanted here.  It was certainly cool too look at, anyway!

could be cars set up for a movie/tv shoot as well, where they dont want to advertise a brand.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Other than the really tiny, pretty much every powertrain translates to something all around the world.  All of our 3 and 4 cyl engines are used in both the US and the EU.  I'm sure GM is the same, even before Opal was sold to PSA.  

And fun is relative.  There's a lot of time looking at data, figuring out what is both good and bad.  The work is very interesting, though.  Like I've got some work coming up playing with some experimental software- which is driving, changing something, driving, and making sure the expected result happens.   And then making sure that you can calibrate the crap out of it.

In reply to alfadriver :

Yes.  One of said friends was telling me about how he basically got a demo ECU from Continental, but it was just a blank box with a processor and a number of inputs and outputs, and he had to write all of the engine control code for it (firmware in aftermarket-speak, operating system in GM-speak).  I consider that to be pretty cool for a day job

OTOH he also had hacked an EEC-IV into something entirely not-Ford, because he could do that...

One of my other friends working for the same company had the exciting job of test driver.  He was telling me about the 1.6EB Fusion long before it came out.  My favorite story was when he was given an F-series dually (can't remember if F350 or F450) with a 20,000lb trailer attached.  His previous job was long haul trucking, so he thought "Cool!"  Then he started it, and realized that it had a gas V10 engine in it, and he was able to verbally recreate the long face of disappointment   In his words, some days he would drive for 8 hours uneventfully, some days he'd get a half hour out and find himself waiting for a tow truck.

The Fusion was memorable because while he was stopped at a light, the ECU decided that he wanted more power, so it started revving up, harder and harder, while he was madly stomping the brake pedal trying to keep it from moving.  Great if you are staging at a Christmas Tree, not so much when in traffic in Dearborn.

Anyone have the  Print file for the black/white camo pattern ?

it would be cool to print a wrap like that for some boring 4 door sedan !

In reply to californiamilleghia :

It reminds me of Dazzle.

(Google image search Dazzle paint ships.  Fascinating stuff!)

One of my friends/Lemons cohorts wanted to paint our Lemons car in a Dazzle theme.  It was strongly pointed out that giving a car a paint job that made it difficult to see how far away it was, was an astonishingly bad idea for Lemons.

That dazzle paint scheme looks straight of a Stryper concert and video.

In reply to californiamilleghia :

The Bronco wrap I saw in the summer of 2020 had the Bronco letters and a horse.   

I have been trying to learn adobe Illustrator but it will be a long time before I can figure out the camo pattern !

Does anyone sell the prototype-ish wrap on its own?

MadScientistMatt said:

Does anyone sell the prototype-ish wrap on its own?

Yesterday I was thinking similar for Challenge car.  No, I have not seen where you can buy this digital camo wrap.

My favorite level of the tape over the badges was test cars from a certain Japanese manufacturer where they went so far as to tape over the name printed on the glass just for added security. Bonus points for the fact you could see the outline of the Nissan badge in the back though... 

John Welsh said:

MadScientistMatt said:

Does anyone sell the prototype-ish wrap on its own?

Yesterday I was thinking similar for Challenge car.  No, I have not seen where you can buy this digital camo wrap.

I think you are going to have to make it up.  

The wraps are just vinyl sheet that is printed- not at all a fitted sheet.  If you look closely, you'll see it looks like a very poorly wrapped present where someone cut 5 sheets of paper for a simple box.

They look really bad up close.

MadScientistMatt said:

Does anyone sell the prototype-ish wrap on its own?

If you search for "dazzle" wrap you can find it for sale from some overseas vendors.