On Friday evening I received a telephone call from Brenda Priddy. She told me she had just shot photos of a camo'd Ridgeline. I asked her what she could see that was different and she said she wasn't sure but it appeared that they may have been testing some new bodywork on the front end because it was fairly heavily masked. Then she sent me these photos and I stared at them for a little while and compared them to a stock 2006 Ridgeline photo and I came to the conclusion that underneath all that tape and vinyl lies the front end of - a 2006 Ridgeline. So I e-mailed her and proposed a theory that these may have been decoys to pull her off the scent of something else that may have been testing that day. She said that it didn't seem that way because the test engineers were particularly evasive and agitated when they realized that they had been caught in the crosshairs of Priddy's digital Canon. She also mentioned that this stock nose piece appeared to be bolted on over something else. If that's the case I'm not sure what sort of testing objectives they might have - it certainly couldn't be testing the cooling systems!

She sent 5 shots to me but I'm only running one of them. 2 were side/rear view shots and I couldn't see anything odd in those at all (except this may be the first time I've seen a test mule wearing decals on the window - these said "G-Force Racing Gear". This one was the clearest of the 3 front shots.

There must be something going on - it could be drivetrain testing or something, but why go to all the trouble with the disguise? They could probably drive around for months in front of BP & Company and go undetected if they put on a fake air snorkel, about 15 RANCHO stickers, and a light bar with 5 Billion candlepower of KC HiLites - then it would look like every other pickup truck out there.

Last edited by JeffX on August 21, 2006 07:56