Pre-production car

Pre-production cars are vehicles that allow the automaker to find problems before a new model goes on sale to the public. Pre-production cars come after prototypes, or development mules which themselves are preceded by concept cars. Pre-production vehicles are followed by production vehicles in the mass production of them for distribution through car dealerships. Pre-production cars are typically built in small quantities on a pilot production line, or in some cases on the real production line alongside the current model. Typically the parts used will be off the production tooling, or at least are intended to represent the final part very closely. Sometimes the components used to make a pre-production car are a mix between the prototype models and the mass production versions to come later. A pre-production car is like a beta version of a software program — it is used for demonstration and evaluation purposes of an all-new vehicle. An example was Preston Tucker in the development the radically designed 1948 Tucker Sedan for the postwar car market and purchased a factory in Chicago for building the pre-production cars. Automakers may assemble pre-production cars in a specialized small facility, often by hand, to try out the new tooling, as well as test vehicle assembly fits and techniques. This is also an opportunity to train foremen and supervisors for volume production, sometimes ten months before pilot assembly of the new cars. In some cases, pre-production cars may be built before management has made final marketing decisions. Although the Nash and Hudson brands disappeared for 1958 in favor of a unified Rambler line under AMC, pre-production cars included the Nash or Hudson emblems ahead of the Ambassador nameplates on the sides of the front fenders, and early factory literature has visible airbrushing to eliminate the emblems. Chevrolet built 43 pre-production, third-generation Corvettes, but none were released to the public as the automaker skipped over the 1983 model year and decided to introduce the new cars as 1984s with an extended production run.