EXP Jawa
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2014
- Threads
- 3
- Messages
- 1,011
- Reaction score
- 205
- Location
- Rochester, NY
- Website
- www.torsen.com
- First Name
- Rick
- Vehicle(s)
- 1999 Cobra Convertible, Electric Green
Wild Stang,
There actually is a difference in the semantics. The term "pre-production" is generally accepted to have a specific meaning, and it is different from that of "prototype".
Pre-production, in the automotive context, does not refer to any car built before Job1. What it does refer to are cars that are nearly 100% finalized in terms of specs, hardware and content. They may be lacking final finishes, graining, or textures, but they also may not be. These cars are typically built very late in the development, off of production intent processes using production tools. Basically, these are generally production-grade cars that happen to have been built prior to actual start of production. In many cases, these are actually saleable cars (unless they've been used past the limits of what the OEM can resell). In Ford's case, these cars come from their tooling trial builds and on into the PPAP approval build.
That makes pre-production cars distinctly different from actual prototypes. Prototypes are often built from various stages of parts and tools, may only be partially representative of the final intent, and used to conduct initial and mid-phase development testing. These are generally considered to be different still from development mules, which are built from existing vehicles to test specific systems (or combinations of systems) before the prototype chassis are available for test use.
There actually is a difference in the semantics. The term "pre-production" is generally accepted to have a specific meaning, and it is different from that of "prototype".
Pre-production, in the automotive context, does not refer to any car built before Job1. What it does refer to are cars that are nearly 100% finalized in terms of specs, hardware and content. They may be lacking final finishes, graining, or textures, but they also may not be. These cars are typically built very late in the development, off of production intent processes using production tools. Basically, these are generally production-grade cars that happen to have been built prior to actual start of production. In many cases, these are actually saleable cars (unless they've been used past the limits of what the OEM can resell). In Ford's case, these cars come from their tooling trial builds and on into the PPAP approval build.
That makes pre-production cars distinctly different from actual prototypes. Prototypes are often built from various stages of parts and tools, may only be partially representative of the final intent, and used to conduct initial and mid-phase development testing. These are generally considered to be different still from development mules, which are built from existing vehicles to test specific systems (or combinations of systems) before the prototype chassis are available for test use.
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