# In Plain Slate

> Slate Auto teased its EV with a parked truck rewrapped as fake businesses for five days.

- Owner: Slate Auto
- Kind: Campaign
- Sector: Auto & mobility
- Seed date: 2025-04-19
- Peak date: 2025-04-22
- Spread Score: 34 (Niche, provisional), v1.2
- Mechanics: Mystery & lore, Real-world spectacle, Platform jump

## Summary

Slate’s disguised vehicles gave car enthusiasts an identification puzzle. David Tracy said a Reddit thread sent him to photograph the Venice display, a non-running design model. Fake-business sites connected curiosity to the scheduled reveal.

## Timeline

- 2025-04-19 — Slate Auto / Open Influence (Retail) — Slate planted a prototype on Abbot Kinney, rewrapped every 24 to 48 hours as ads for fictional businesses.
- Week of Apr 20, 2025 — r/whatisthiscar (Reddit) — By April 20, a Reddit user had asked r/whatisthiscar to identify a car seen in a TikTok ad.
- 2025-04-20 — The Autopian (David Tracy) (Press) — Tracy said Reddit led him to the Venice display, which he found lacked a working powertrain and real suspension.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/developers).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/slate-in-plain-slate

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “In Plain Slate.” Case HIS-00838. Spread Score v1.2: 34/100. Updated 2026-10-17. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-00838