Bespoke elements of a vehicle’s interior trim are no longer only for luxury car brands. With leading manufacturers such as Bentley and Rolls-Royce having set the standard for generations, more OEMs are beginning to offer bespoke options to help add a unique twist to their customer’s vehicles. In this article, Mike Bylina, managing director at Vestatec, explains how different manufacturing techniques such as metal forming, etching and coating are helping to reshape personalisation across the automotive industry.
Humans are masters of adaptation. Even when faced with a vast array of sensory inputs, our brains are finely tuned to constantly identify and prioritise all threats and opportunities in our surrounding environment. And, with our brains being exposed to an overwhelming number of options, advertisements and influential content on a daily basis, through various forms of online and offline content, it should come as no surprise that consumer habits are also evolving.
Often the biggest purchase a consumer will make – other than property – a car has always been a carefully considered purchase. However, research repeatedly shows that can also be an emotional decision; in many cases people choose a specific make and model because they fall in love with it. As buyer behaviours change, that decision is increasingly about how the vehicle looks and feels on the inside as well as its driving performance and exterior aesthetics.
Along with enhanced choice, car buyers also have higher expectations of both form and function. This more aspirational view has been driven in no small part by consumer electronics. 20 years ago, most mobile phones had plastic shells and rubber keys. But since the advent of the iPhone, we’ve seen their aesthetic shift from chunky and utilitarian to sleek and shiny.
In the same way, consumers expect – and demand – much more from a modern car’s interior. Even more than their mobile phone, their car reflects their personal aesthetic. When it comes to the interior, that includes bespoke elements and customisation, and in the same way that a Millennial or Gen Z might look at a Nokia 2600 with distaste, today’s prospective car buyer perceives plastic trim as basic, while surveys show they link the look and feel of metallic components to a premium product.
Furthermore, increasingly people do not want their vehicle to look the same as everyone else’s – after all, a car reflects the owner’s personality. While they can choose the exterior colour of the car, the interior offers far greater opportunities for going beyond customisation to making it truly bespoke.
Trickle-down effect
Like with most fashion trends, bespoke interior elements began at the high end of the market – luxury cars.
The consumer appetite for this customisation is evident in the success of programmes by the most prestigious vehicle manufacturers in the world. Ferrari Tailor Made is a perfect example, enabling the buyer to customise their own Ferrari, with an array of options for fabrics, leathers, woods and more. Ferrari knows its audience and is confident in stating the goal of the programme: it is “designed to ensure the client feels absolutely the centre of attention”.
Offerings like Ferrari Tailor Made and Bentley’s Mulliner Bespoke programme also provide the opportunity to make the vehicle interior truly unique. This could include incorporating a pattern, logo or name into the cabin. This elevates the level of choice from customisation to truly bespoke.
However, as with high fashion, vehicle interior trends often trickle down from luxury cars to more affordable brands. Bespoke interior trim, in particular speaker grilles and other metal interior components, can enable design engineers to go beyond the dull functionality of plastic to become integral elements of the interior’s overall aesthetic appeal. In non-luxury vehicles, bespoke metallic accents can elevate the driving experience in an affordable way.
What’s more, metal components give a superior look and feel to their plastic counterparts, turning functional parts into eye-catching decorative features. With the right design considerations, these can be utilised in more affordable models, creating little touches of luxury at a relatively low cost.
Plastic still has its place, as it is an extremely cost-effective material to form the primary components of a vehicle’s interior, such as door panels and the dashboard. However, metal forming and chemical etching are ideal for crafting decorative features, such as speaker grilles and other trim, which can incorporate bespoke details tailored to the vehicle and its users.
Proven technology
One of the reasons that bespoke interiors are becoming more accessible is that the technology is now well established. Chemical etching is the ideal process for creating complex patterns or even holes in parts such as metal speaker grilles. Unlike conventional machining, it works by using chemical reactions to selectively remove areas of metal. This ensures uniform surface depth, at accuracies of up to ±0.025mm, making it the best choice for intricate interior trim elements such as a bespoke logo, for example.
In addition, advanced metal finishing techniques such as Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) coating can provide another level of customisation, with a range of metallic colours available for designers to choose from, including gold, silver, graphite, blue and true black. Companies like Vestatec can provide PVD coatings less than one micron in thickness, meaning that the surface texture of the metal substrate underneath is still visible – brushed finishes are particularly popular. Despite its thin application, PVD is also extremely durable and scratch resistant. Moreover, it is less harmful to the environment than traditional coating methods, as no hazardous substances are used during production and finished parts are 100% recyclable at the end of their life.
In fact, our customer journey shows an evolution of the modern speaker grille market.
The first chemically etched speaker grille Vestatec produced was for Jaguar in 2009. In the following years, brands like Volvo and Bentley were pioneers in utilising PVD and chemical etching for more creative designs. More recently, OEMs such as GM and Ferrari are beginning to push the limits in terms of design complexity and size using these processes.
Ongoing transition
As the industry continues to evolve with the consumer, we are starting to see chemically etched metal grilles in mass market vehicles – as part of option packages – and would expect this to continue. The ability of chemical etching to create unique hole patterns and incorporate logos or other customisable designs in a cost effective way means that we can predict it will remain the preferred manufacturing method for bespoke interior trim.
We also know that PVD coating is a very economical and sustainable solution for small grilles, meaning there is potential for this technique to be widely adopted across the industry, especially as OEMs try to nurture a more sustainable approach to manufacturing.
At the same time, we are seeing a move towards harmonisation across the cabin with regard to colour, including trim and dials, and it is expected that speaker grilles will reflect this trend, perhaps incorporating design elements from other components. One example of this is Cadillac’s Celestiq which utilises one single piece of metal, extending the form of the speaker grille to the width of the vehicle’s door, creating a sleek and sophisticated interior component
It is important to remember that metal components are never going to be as economical to incorporate as their plastic equivalents. However, the value they bring to the overall vehicle experience is vastly superior. The biggest challenge for design engineers is ensuring that parts are designed with cost efficiency in mind. At Vestatec we ensure this is a consideration from the very beginning of the conversation, rather than arriving as an afterthought.
Here to stay
Personalisation is an all-encompassing consumer trend that looks like it is here to stay. Precision engineering processes like chemical etching and advanced techniques such as PVD coating mean that more OEMs can now offer bespoke interior elements to the market.
This new capability to provide bespoke packages is therefore a game changer, creating new possibilities for personalisation within automotive design. Through collaborative innovation with OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers such as Vestatec are enabling design engineers to unlock the full potential of bespoke offerings.
To speak to Vestatec about how its services could help elevate your vehicle brand, visit www.vestatec.co.uk
