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Product development in automotive industry is still deeply based on experimentation: test benches and road test facilities are used both for components testing and models validation. Nevertheless a growing role is played by numerical simulation and nowdays by virtual experimentation. The latter is required by the increasing complexity of the systems and cost saving. Moreover new products involve a higher level of integration between mechanics, electronics and computer science, which makes difficult a rapid and low cost prototyping. The design of the vehicle is currently applied to the overall system instead of assembling subsystems separately developed and tested. This approach requires that the same level of integration is achieved on numerical codes and simulators, to be able to operate hardware and software for virtual experimentation in mechatronic systems. This paper briefly describes the experience done since few years, by Fiat Auto and Politecnico di Torino (Dept.