The art of deception: How Apple attempts to keep its secret projects under wraps
Amidst a series of Apple-occupied offices in the town of Sunnyvale, Calif., is a mysterious company named SixtyEight Research, which has a limited online presence and recently renovated its facilities to add a "repair garage." This, accompanied by sources who say it's located in the office complex is where Apple is working on its secret electric car project, has led to speculation that Apple is using SixtyEight as a cover.
Further adding intrigue to the mystery, "SixtyEight LLC" was registered as a company last year in California, and imported a 1957 Fiat Multipla 600 from the U.K. into the U.S. Apple's chief designer Jony Ive is known for having an affinity for Fiat's designs, and he and co-designer Marc Newson auctioned off a Product(RED) Fiat 600 back in 2013.
The connections to Apple are particularly noteworthy because such tactics are the company's modus operandi, using shell corporations and other public smokescreens to hide projects, as it develops them and attempts to bring them to market. These obfuscation tactics have been around for decades, famously used by Walt Disney to buy up large tracts of land in Florida. His real estate endeavors eventually became Walt Disney World, and the land was purchased at prices that would have been unavailable if the true buyer had been known.
