Car Spy: Secret Cars Exposed by the Industry's Most Notorious Photographer

All automobile manufacturers go to great pains to keep their future models under wraps until ready for public unveiling. Huge proving grounds in remote locations with roving, menacing private security forces are enough to keep the casual observers away. But not everyone is a casual observer. Some are quite serious about clamping eyes (and lenses) on the latest design innovations, often years before they become available to the public.
If you ve ever picked up a car magazine and looked at a grainy photo of an oddly shaped and camouflaged car under the headline 2017 Supercar Revealed! then you have seen the work of the car spy, Jim Dunne. This illustrated narrative tells the tales behind the photos, in an engaging and often humorous fashion. Car Spy is illustrated with more than 200 vintage black and white and modern color images of domestic and foreign cars in various stages of development and testing.
Car Spy will prove irresistible to automotive enthusiasts that have an interest in new cars, the manufacturing process, and the lengths manufacturers will go to in order to protect their intellectual property. People will be fascinated by the lengths a photographer will go to in order to scoop a manufacturer s new car. This book will narrate the humorous, behind-the-scenes stories to accompany the spy photos.

Jim Dunne is no casual auto industry observer; he s an automotive spy photographer. Dunne has spent the past 40 years staking out manufacturers proving grounds and secret test sessions both domestically and abroad. He s used disguises, engaged in subterfuge, and often benefited from plain old-fashioned good luck. He s exposed new Corvettes well before any public introduction, snapped photos of models as varied as BMW, Honda, and Aston-Martin. His photo is featured on Wanted! posters in all of the Big 3 s proving ground security offices. As past Detroit editor for Popular Mechanics, Dunne is well-known and widely recognized by his hometown s automotive power brokers, often making his task all the more difficult. His work has been published in the NY Times, USA Today, Motor Trend, Autoweek, Car and Driver, Road & Track, and Automobile.