Can you benefit from the abilities like SHIELD TA if you are running the SHIELD CAR as terrain? Same question applies for the trait on the Spider buggy.

Special terrain confuses me in general too, but since I'm pretty sure it's not a character, nothing that applies to characters would apply there. No TA, no keywords, just what it spells out for terrain.

If you play it as Special Terrain, none of the game effects that it would have as a character would apply. No powers, abilities, etc.