[Tom Vaught]

Back on Keith's comment about "tagged cars"

It was a very common practice for some employees to get "Brass Hat" vehicles after the "Shooter" was assigned his new vehicle. They called that plan at my Brand X company the "B-Plan" and usually there was some discount off of the original price for the Mileage on the vehicle. Our Mileage was documented pretty well as all oil changes, maint, etc during the Execs time with the vehicle was documented and put in a file on the vehicle.

I know of a few other guys who worked for the other team on the other side of town who had 1/2 speed reducers installed in their company vehicles to keep the mileage number down. Speedos were not turned back, just the vehicle had twice the mileage it was supposed to have based on the odo. Funny story is the WIFE borrowed the execs car and went to the store. She was rolling down a street at 50 mph, was clocked by RADAR, and ticketed. (Speed limit was 25 mph on that street.) She swore to the police that she was never over 25 mph. Even took a lie detector test with her lawyer at the police station. She passed. So they dropped the ticket but inspected all future vehicles stopped by their officers. The 1/2 speed reducer was in plain site coming out of the transmission.

So the word went out that there would be a lot of negative publicity if certain vehicles were identified as having improper mileage documentation when the titles were transferred. So that little trick went away.

Tom V.