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GM Purchases Bouvet Island From Norway, Will Be Used For All Future Product Testing

General Motors has motioned to purchase Bouvet Island, one of the loneliest and most remote places in the world, from the government of Norway for an undisclosed amount. In doing so, the company will begin relocating all of its vehicle testing operations to the island, keeping its future products more secret than ever before. The island is located in the Southern Atlantic Ocean, in between South Africa and Antarctica. It has no human population, and the only wildlife there are extremophile bacteria and seabirds, which are probably just lost.

“We actually had our first operations at Bouvet with the 2014 Camaro Z/28. That’s why it never crossed paths with any of those pesky spy photographers. Our new strategy of exclusively testing our vehicles on Bouvet Island will be implemented for every GM vehicle going forward,” said Dan Flowers, GM R&D communications manager, in a press release that showed up in our inbox.

Bouvet Island’s nearly year-round climate of freezing temperatures makes it an even more ideal place for cold-weather testing than Michigan, while a conveniently placed volcano on the island makes an ideal location for hot-weather testing. Other tests will be conducted in a massive 100,000 square-meter subterranean facility, staffed with researchers and development engineers that will have to arrive via helicopter, and will have no contact with the outside world until their programs are completed. At that time they will fly back home, while a new rotation restaffs the facility.

Many may view this tactic as a tad extreme, but the people within GM are pretty sick and tired of their vehicle projects leaking out before completion.

Update: this was written on April 1st, 2013. Happy April Fools’ Day!

Former staff.

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Comments

  1. 1st of APRIL, 2013

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  2. Nearly year-round freezing temperatures huh? And a volcano substitutes for “hot” weather? Then tell this on April Fools Day, whatever.

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  3. #1. It’s Flores.

    And it had me til the sequestering of the engineers in underground bunkers. Sorry, we will go to Arizona but very few would agree to some deserted island.

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    1. Today, it’s Flowers.

      Reply
  4. Should have left out “pesky”… you blew your cover with it

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  5. So wait, is this an April Fools prank? Because if it isn’t, this will be costly and strange for GM. It sounds like the Area 51 of the car industry. And will the Nurberg Ring still be used for testing?

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    1. GM will build a replica of the Nurburgring on the island… this allows them to no longer pay track fees while staying out of the spy shooters’ lenses.

      Reply
  6. HA,HA,HA Nice try!

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  7. I was intrigued, till I realized today was April Fool’s Day…

    Although, if they did do that, would that make the island property of the U.S. since GM is American? Obviously GM would own the island, but it would be a U.S. property too, no?

    Reply
    1. Not necessarily. Hypothetically speaking, if GM bought the island, it would technically buy rights to use it from the sovereign country. Otherwise, it would buy the island outright and need to establish municipal services (police, hospitals, etc.), and the whole thing would be much more expensive than buying use rights (like a lease).

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      1. Thank you, Alex.

        Reply
  8. I knew this was fake as the Vikings would have pillaged the place anyways!

    Vikings are cool!

    Reply
  9. Is this fake or not?

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  10. Awil428 its fake. But a good fake.

    Reply

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