If you’re reading this, by now you’ve likely seen all the extensive coverage on the 2015 Mustang. During the car’s debut we brought you all manner of photography, analysis and video of the car, including a look at the exterior design from Ford.
What you may not realize, is that just as the exterior design is agonized over for months, sometimes even years, the interior design goes through a very similar process.
This video from Everyman Driver features Ford staff and designers taking media members through the interior design process that went into the 2015 Mustang. There are certain aspects of the design that must be maintained because they’re decidedly Mustang, and part of the car’s DNA. That includes the double-brow dash, and the symmetrical instrument panel (IP).
Much like the exterior design, the interior starts out as artist drawings which become more and more detailed. Different elements are added and changed until a final theme is decided upon and approved from the bosses.
From there the interior design is translated into a CAD program that can be further manipulated to make changes. The CAD rendering will then be used to create a full scale clay model of the interior. This is the step we had honestly never thought about before with respect to a vehicle interior. The modeling team and CAD designer work together to adjust designs as some things that look great in CAD may not work in the physical world, or what’s done in clay may not be easily reproduced through machining for production.
Once the full scale clay model is complete, the clay itself is covered in materials that are close to what the production vehicle will receive. This is where a designer will select the plastics, leather, stitching, metals, and colors that go into the interior. This area also looks at what’s possible from a production stand point as well. Even the gauges and gauge lighting are looked at here, and the model is battery powered to provide illumination for those gauges.
Finally a full scale interior model is combined with a full scale body model to get a feel for a completed car. This final model gets as close to production as possible without building the actual car on the assembly line. The video offers an interesting look into the world of what auto designers really do.