McLaren step by step so far

[Nurser]

Bill, is that the FIAT126 that Ford learnt about front wheel drive with?  Several of the little Italian buzz-boxes were seen circulating the test track at Dunton R&D centre in Essex when I was living nearby.  Ford hadn't a clue about front wheel drive, so using their hush-hush links with FIAT they dressed 'em up to disguise the fact and before you could say "Numb Nuts", they'd produced the Fiesta!!   Clever boys and girls!
When they couldn't sustain a truck programme, who'd they go with?  FIAT, and called it Iveco.
Hector

[John McGuyer]

Ford has always had a habit of stealing ideas and claiming them as their own. Goes clear back to Henry and the production line which everyone gives him credit for. All he did was use it. He didn't invent it.

John

[RoughboyModelworks]

Yes, these did start out as Fiat 126s (otherwise known as Fix It Again Tony) and just what was trying to be accomplished here is open to speculation.

Here's another photo of a somewhat more extreme version ? makes you want to ask "WTF is this all about?" Looks like something the lads on Top Gear would come up with  . Afterall they did try to make a space shuttle out of a Reliant Robin.   I suppose it could be one solution to a bad fogging-up problem with the windshield. Certainly be entertaining to drive it through an evening bug swarm 

Bill

[John McGuyer]

That thing should be parked on the field during a monster truck event.

John

[Nurser]

Rich, alledgedly to disguise the new designs, but it never fools anyone.
I saw a BMW Mini "disguised in black cardboard going up the road near the Land Rover testing ground at Gaydon.  It was so obviously a BMW Mini that I couldn't see why they bothered.  But why was it coming from Gaydon, owned by Ford and run by Jaguar?  Now the place is owned by Tata, I suppose, but it's also used by Aston Martin.  In the middle of it all is a Museum to BMC!!  It's crazy.
Hector