It’s no secret that our staff has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this month’s cover car, Chevrolet’s once-and-future King of the Hill, the 2009 Corvette ZR1. Regular readers may recall that we were so frustrated with its seemingly endless development process that we went and constructed our own—a would-be Blue Devil built on a 2007 Z06. With little more than $300 in marine vinyl and some long hours, our hausgemacht hero galloped onto the pages of some of the largest and most influential magazines and websites in our segment. It even landed on the pages of The New York Times.

That little experiment by this young publication set the automotive journalism community on its ear, feverishly dividing those who found it to be an engaging and good-natured ruse from others who took great offense in the idea that a media outlet could be involved in creating news, not just covering it. Both parties had good points, but one thing our shenanigans unwittingly did was to open up a valuable discussion on determining the validity of spy shots.

The advent of the Internet has changed the game, and inexpensive photographic equipment like camera phones have thrown open the digital door on amateur spy shots. Image-manipulation software like Photoshop has pried open the portal further still, with the number of credible-looking artist renderings mushrooming along with the rest of the spy shot economy. As our Corvette fauxtotype proved, it’s increasingly more difficult to determine the reliability of such shots, since the accompanying reports are often based on little more than a handful of grainy images depicting camouflaged vehicles. Well, that, and tidbits of intelligence gleaned from unnamed sources. Naturally, outfits like Brenda Priddy & Co. and KGP Photography routinely go the extra mile to ferret out the truth about what lurks at the other end of their long lenses, but by its very nature spy shooting will always remain something of a black art. As both clients and enthusiasts, we’ve come to trust the work of these professionals, but we also understand that speculation will always make up part of the equation.

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Magazine Issue: Winding Road Issue 30