Cloak & Camera in Detroit

As the auto industry last week began producing the first 1965 cars, many potential customers speculated about the features that are expected to make for the most dramatically changed models in years. There will be a futuristic fastback shape for the Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac line: a switch of seven models to vertical double headlights; the Ford's and Chrysler's new slab sides; a hop-up rear fender for the Chevrolet; and a new shape for the Corvair that makes it look like a miniature version of the Buick Riviera. These details, however, are ancient history to a small group of men who are already displaying considerable interest in the looks and features of Detroit's 1967 models.

Ford calls them "product information specialists" and 'Chrysler "competitive study engineers." In Detroit, their trade is often known as "G-2" or "G-4." Whatever their title, they are men employed by each automaker to ferret out the secrets of the others --auto spies. Though the industry officially declines to recognize its existence, espionage is an ever-present fact of life that goes on at all levels in Detroit, from treetops overlooking test tracks to the steam room and bars at the Detroit Athletic Club. The hunting season usu ally begins a couple of model-years in advance, when the cars of the future are barely off the drawing boards.

Comfortable Spying. "G-2" enables companies to discover what their rivals are doing with styling and engineering trends, thus prevents them from moving too far behind the industry or -- what some executives fear even more -- so far out that the public will reject their models. Intelligence is also invaluable for marketing and advertising campaigns, which are planned months in advance and can frequently make use of information to pinpoint weaknesses in another company's new line. The right kind of intelligence, on the other hand, can also save companies the embarrassment of duplicating too closely the styling of a competitor. "You need this kind of information," says retired Ford Styling Chief George Walker, "so you know what not to do."

Detroit's operatives keep in constant touch with key informants in such sensitive and hard-to-patrol areas as the tool and die shops, design firms, plaster shops, tire companies and art studios that subcontract for the auto industry. Here they can often pick up information that skilled engineers and product planners can assemble into a faithful replica of a rival's new car. Ford, for example, was able to construct a clay model of General Motors' Chevelle nearly a year before its introduction. Most agents do their work so quietly that only a handful of men in each division or company knows who they are.

Locked Wastebaskets. But there are also more glamorous elements in much of Detroit's industrial espionage. Spies equipped with telescopic cameras seek out strategically placed trees, farm houses and hills near automobile test tracks, concealing themselves and some times waiting for weeks for a prototype of a rival's car. Both G.M. and Chrysler men often check into Ford's Dearborn Inn, which overlooks the Dearborn test track, bringing luggage crammed with cameras and telescopic lenses. When G.M. learned that snoopers were using a modest farmhouse overlooking its high-security proving ground in Michi gan's Livingston County, it persuaded the farmer to sell out for $55,000, then razed the house.

To guard against espionage, auto companies plant thick rows of pine trees near their tracks, build corrugated-steel walls and throw up 20-ft. earthen embankments to shield exposed parts of the track. Guards patrol the periphery of proving grounds, armed with two-way radios, binoculars, whistles--and sometimes even saws, which they use to threaten photographers discovered in trees. Ford employs an ex-FBI agent to head its styling security force, and most firms even use security-type wastebaskets with locks. Styling personnel usually wear colored Pentagon-type badges that give them access to only one section; clay models are destroyed after use.

To confuse the intelligence men, companies make elaborate decoys that will never be produced in volume, have them driven endlessly around tracks. Actual prototypes are usually painted ink-black before being taken to the test track, since the color considerably limits depth perception in long-range photography. Despite all precautions, though, the men with cloak and camera prove remarkably resourceful. Inspecting some 1965 models last year in the tightly guarded styling patio at the G.M. Technical Center, Elliott ("Pete") Estes, Pontiac's general manager, heard a whirring sound. He looked up just as a helicopter swooped over the building, with telescopic lens pointed earthward. Estes waved his arms for maintenance men to cover the new models with canvas sheets, which were kept in readiness for just such an "air raid." But it was too late: his unknown rival got a lensful of future Pontiacs.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.