McLaren design chief reveals 'spy pics' truth

Many spy pics published by media outlets around the world – including this one – are not quite the cat-and-mouse game of opportunistic snapping we're led to believe, says McLaren design director Frank Stephenson.

In Australia for the official opening of a new McLaren dealership in Melbourne, Stephenson confirmed to motoring.com.au that disguised cars circulating the Nordschleife are often out there for the purpose of a long-lead PR campaign ahead of the car's inevitable debut at one of the big European motor shows – Geneva, Frankfurt or Paris.

When motoring.com.au put it to Stephenson that 'testing' a car at the Nurburgring – a known hot-spot for spy photographers – would be stupid unless the car company's intention were to set tongues wagging ahead of the new car's global unveiling, the McLaren design boss answered with one word: "Exactly."

"Most spy shots are just leaked photos from the company..." he said. Even though the spy photographers are out there in the elements all hours of the day (and occasionally after nightfall), Stephenson insinuates they're being played by marketing execs at the car companies. Sometimes the car companies forego all pretense, even letting reviewers drive pre-production models that are still wearing their cladding.

And Stephenson speaks with some authority on the subject, boasting a CV that any designer would be proud to call their own. He started out working with Ford on some of the design details for the Escort Cosworth (notably the bi-plane rear spoiler), before moving to BMW, where he led the team that designed the original R50 MINI. He subsequently worked on the Maserati MC12, Ferrari F430 and 612 Scaglietti, before joining McLaren in 2008. Over the course of his career he has also designed the Alfa-Romeo MiTo, the Fiat 500 and the original BMW X5.

If anyone would know when to arrange for a vehicle to be caught out in the open (as opposed to keeping it behind closed doors), it would be Stephenson.

The challenge for him at McLaren is more complex than for design bosses at other car companies. Typically, he revealed, McLaren's concept cars are usually very close to production-ready by the time they hit the stage at an international motor show. So the show car is already generating intense interest while the prototypes and pre-production models are still undergoing durability testing.

"The P1 that we've shown in Paris – the orange one – that was basically our production car," he said. "We had to black out the windows so that nobody could see inside the car and see that it was a production car."

Thus, there's little reason for McLaren to strategically roll out a test vehicle with carefully chosen camouflage to provide just enough grist for the spy snapper's art. Anything to cover up on the outside is almost certainly identical to what's already been seen on the show car.

That's not to say that McLaren spy photos don't exist, but they are few and far between.

"So I'm going to tell you all our secrets… between 12 and 1:00am we usually drive on this certain road that nobody ever goes to..." he answered with a laugh when asked about McLaren's test procedures and evading spy photographers.

Stephenson says McLaren conducts most of its pre-production testing in very secure facilities – and the Nordschleife doesn't seem to meet the criteria of 'secure'.

"The Nordschleife is great, because it does give you the potential to test out real road conditions and exaggerated road conditions, but we don't really use the Nordschleife too much for production-car testing."

"Basically I think all our testing is done in a very secure place in Spain, called IDIADA. That's a very tight security development area for testing new products. We have some areas in England like Dunsfold – what used to be the Top Gear test track…

"[For] The road testing we actually do have to get road experience with a car. That's the typical Sweden/Arctic Circle, Death Valley in the US approach, but then the cars are highly camouflaged, so we've tried to keep it disguised so nobody knows what we're coming up with. That's typical automotive [industry] approach."

The interesting point about spy photos is that a facelifted model or a carefully built mule could pass for a current production car, if not for the camouflage. It's all the 'bra and panties' stuff that draws attention to a car.

As a postscript, not all spy photo opportunities are carefully manipulated ploys by evil PR geniuses.

This case, for instance, was clearly a nasty surprise for Renault engineers in far north Queensland. And this case earned motoring.com.au quite a rebuke from Holden PR staff at the time. By the time the VF Commodore was months away from launch all the testing was done under cover, even within the secure confines of the Lang Lang proving ground.