Not guitar related, but a story that may support this.
In 1988, I purchased a Datsun 2000 (Fairlady) racecar project that was rumored to be one of the infamous ?Purple Panel? cars.
The story went that, as Datsun were trying to market their sports car in America, successes in SCCA racing would help their cause.
They took 5 cars from the assembly line and built lightweight cars for sale to racing drivers only. The outer panels were stamped from very thin steel (which was prone to denting easily) and to avoid rough treatment before the paint shop the lightweight cars were marked with purple dye. These cars were driven by competent race drivers such as Pete Brock and Bob Sharp, to many successes.
After finding more and more clues that mine was one of those, (it was over 200 lbs lighter than a stock car stripped for racing. And had aluminum trunk lid hinges) I contacted NISMO, the Nissan Motorsport Division asking for more information.
I received a very polite letter in return, which said: Nissan has ?NO RECORD? of these cars.
It really baffled me until I realized that, by admitting the car?s mere existence, ALL of those victories and championships would be suspect.
If a major Japanese company is not going to reveal information to a private citizen about one of it?s ? schemes? that was successful, how forthcoming would they be about a program that did not work out so well?
Not trying to be contentious, just serving some food for thought.