Ah, that toilet seat comes back to haunt us.
The "toilet seat" was a manifold. More or less a large wormhole that went horizontal and vertical and was cast into a large fiberglass block and connected to the holding tank. You could do a sharp turn in the aircraft, do a sudden dive, and the crap didn't flow back into and cough out of the toilet. Reporters who had diffiiculty thinking of anything about a toilet that was fiberglass except a toilet seat, interpreted the convoluted military description as a toilet seat.
The $75 dollar hammer was a little math done by one of the personnel in a government contracting department who looked at the number delivered in the first batch, divided by the total cost of the contract to date, and sounded the alarm.
About 30 years ago, in tactical and combat vehicle development, the project manager was always an engineer. (Local prejudices). I asked my contracting chief WTF those rumors were about and he tracked them down for me. I believe him. If that turns out to be untrue, I'll take a 3 wood to the back of his head next sunday.
For companies that aren't well financed, the R&D, design, and tooling are often paid up front, and 10 or so items that may
later have a unit cost of $50,000 are delivered for quality exam, design check, and some tough semi-destructive testing. But instead of $500,000, the Army would often sign a check for several million to cover the opening of the plant, the creation of the tooling, and the salaries of the employees.
Heck, I'm willing to bet the first Dodge pickup off the assembly line in 2014 will cost Chrysler some $200,000,000.