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CELEBRITIES wear disguises to dodge the paparazzi. Isn’t that Brad Pitt under the tweed flat cap and shades? Mel Gibson behind the silly mustache? Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen wearing cat whiskers?

The auto business, like Hollywood, has its own paparazzi, and the star cars wear their own disguises. So-called spy photographers like Brenda Priddy and Hans Lehmann use long telephoto lenses to capture images of the next Corvette or Porsche; the pictures are snapped up by car blogs and enthusiast magazines and carefully scrutinized by car-crazy readers.

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In an effort to shield their still-secret products from prying eyes, automakers testing prototype models, often in the desert and at other remote locales, have long covered the grilles and headlamps with rubber, vinyl and tape — the perfunctory equivalent of masks and hats. Now the old materials are being replaced or supplemented with patterned wrappings applied like wallpaper. Test cars are wearing swirling paisley patterns, harlequin-style diamonds and cubist zigzags.

The vinyl wrappings are easier to apply and work almost as well as the older methods. While certain areas of a car might still be masked out or covered up, companies have found they save time and money with the new camouflage techniques.

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The new patterns are often created by designers, according to Adrian van Hooydonk, design director for the BMW Group. And they are considerably less expensive than the elaborate masks that engineers once created.

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That process was complex, he said: entire full-scale “bucks” of the new cars often had to be constructed, and then masking and padding had to be engineered for each one. Grilles and headlight shapes are crucial to a car’s identity, but to allow for realistic testing at high and low temperatures, engineers had to be careful not to cover the air inlets or alter the aerodynamics.

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Mr. van Hooydonk said designers were pleased to take over the design of camouflage from their internal rivals, the engineers.