Re: [DML] Prototypes, legend and lore

["Bruce Benson" <delornut@xxxx>]

> Ok you have a hand assembled production car.
>
> Now truly if your car is a prototype what parts are different than a
> production car?
>
> Mark
> 6683 prototype?

The term for these cars is pilot model. That's how bugs are worked out and
production standards are devised and modified. Sometimes changes are made in
the car to improve the assembly process and sometimes the process is changed
to make assembly more efficient. In any event, a prototype is a
pre-production example of, for the most part, what's coming. Sometimes
they're not even drivable. The pilot model is, for the most part, what the
finished product will be but isn't intended for sale. It's built and rebuilt
for training and process development purposes along with road testing,
government compliance crash and emission testing and so on. These cars are
destroyed once final production begins. In all the years I worked for Ford I
never saw pilot models built in numbers like the 500 quoted here. My guess
is the majority of the black cars never went beyond the plastic body stage
and were the result of developing the rather complicated process for making
those bodies. The rest of the assembly process development most likely
involved only a few of those bodies. In recent years we built next year's pilot models on the assembly line right alongside current models and then shipped them
back to Detroit for testing. Years ago we got pilot cars shipped to us from
the pilot plant in Dearborn and after new model production started we
destroyed the pilot cars. It would be very interesting to know just how the
DeLorean pilot cars ever got registered. Ford and the government were very
strict regarding our pilot cars and their eventual destruction.

Bruce Benson