Quote:
Originally Posted by drce500
Those cars weren't body in white cars. They were all test vehicles from GM. A large number of the Cutlass bodies had been diesel test cars, some with tons of miles on them. They did the same with the Olds Ciera race cars. Arlen Fadely was in charge of the program, same guy who did the same at Ford before that. SS&DI magazine had a series on him years before buiding the orange Maverick out of a body in white. Pontiac did the same, The Rod Shop Transam that Larry Morgan raced in Super Stock was a running driving car, Larry and i drive it around before he took it apart, it also was a T Top car which wasnt ideal but were left in it and wasnt a problem with the roll cage added.
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To go along with this, from the early 80’s thru the late 80’s I used to see lots of mostly Buick’s and Old’s cars on the roads of Northern Michigan. They usually travelled in groups of 5-10 cars and as many as 3 groups a day putting miles on test cars. They would leave Detroit in early am, head north on east side of lower peninsula to Mackinac, then down the west side of the Lower Peninsula, then back to Detroit, 300-350 miles a day. Next day it was a different group of drivers and cars, or perhaps some of the same. I talked to drivers several times at lunch, or rest breaks and their accounts were they were mileage and other engineering testing.
There was a lot of new engineering going into cars back then, engines, fuel injection, transmissions, anti lock brakes, front wheel drive and more.
I’d bet anything all those cars weren’t scrapped and some of them made it out the back door, whether they were sold as pseudo race cars with no vin, who knows. If some of them were high miles, this could have been the source.