A system and method for vehicle design and manufacture. The method includes designing a vehicle, building a pilot vehicle of the designed vehicle, installing a telematics units in the pilot vehicle, configuring the telematics unit to monitor systems of the pilot vehicle during vehicle operation, operating the pilot vehicle in a captured test fleet, obtaining data from the telematics unit during the operating in a captured test fleet, altering vehicle design data in response to the obtained data and, building a production vehicle with the design influenced by the altered vehicle design data.