Cold weather testing is hugely important in the development process of a vehicle. If said car can’t withstand the harshest of conditions this planet can throw at it, then it will be improved until it can. That’s the purposes of taking camouflaged pre-production models up into the far reaches of northern Europe (mostly Sweden) – to test them to the extreme, and try to make them fail.
All modern cars have to go through similar testing; otherwise, if someone living in such cold climates buys them, they will fail come first winter. Even uber-exclusive hypercars, like the McLaren P1, are subjected to the same kind of rough testing, but the job should be made easier because it’s also bound to be a lot of fun.
Sure, there are protocols, and a test driver can’t simply jump in a P1 and do donuts on a frozen lake, but once it is calibrated properly with the various sensors and telemetry gathering gizmos, plugged in place, the testing begins.
This is close to being a dream job – and if you don’t mind stalactites of ice forming under your nose, chin and ear lobes, it may be the line of work you were looking for. We wonder what the selection process for such a post would be, and if it really lives up to the hype?
By Andrei Nedelea
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