When you see the spy photos or other prototype tests, who does the driving? Are they Ford employees, contractors, or other? I found one article where Ford gave prototype trucks to a mining company to test out without really disclosing the new updates, but can individuals get in on it? Has anyone had the job of driving test vehicles who would be able to speak to it a little bit without violating NDA? Seems like it'd be an interesting job. I tried to do a web search to get more info but mostly just found sites advertising test driving jobs that looked a little sketchy.

 

I'd assume they are primarily test center employees.

 

I used to. I was developing transmission tunes, so I usually had three vehicles under my control. The ones you see on the street are usually engineering prototypes. The people driving them are usually engineers developing the product.

At the proving grounds they usually hire contract people to drive the durability miles. They have to run a very specific route at very specific speeds. Most of the miles are inside the grounds, sometimes they use public roads.