Quote:
Originally Posted by Nitrousbird
I know people who work at Honda R&D (mostly on the Acura side). They buy a large variety of cars simply to evaluate, test, benchmark and I'm sure some reverse engineering is involved. Standard practice.
|
Yes, BMW does this too. In fact they have a huge fleet of cars that are available to employees who need to "know" what the competition is up too. Some cars are taken apart to see how they are made. Most are just to drive and make road tests on and compare with BMW products in that class.
But having your people come on press days with micrometers and rulers to measure technical details of cars is going too far - I think. I've seen people take notes. Some take very macro pictures of textures. Some have detailed forms that they will spend an hour or so per car - "testing" while other real press people must find another "free" car to photograph and look at.