Description
Opel: Sporty Automotive Seat
Major automotive manufacturers have highly sophisticated in-house design teams—and naturally, their designers prefer to develop everything themselves. But when internal resources are stretched, external design partners can bring valuable capacity and fresh perspectives.
In this case, the project originated in advanced development: the goal was to create a new, sporty yet cost-effective vehicle seat with only minor modifications to an existing seat structure.
The challenge was to achieve a distinctly new look and feel while making the most of the existing architecture.
After a competitive selection process, Target Design was brought on board to turn the idea into a finished product—from the first sketches to a fully realized prototype.
Throughout the project, every development step was presented to both Opel’s design and engineering teams. At the same time, we had a high degree of creative and conceptual freedom, allowing us to push the design well beyond the existing structure.
We initially developed three distinct design concepts for Opel to choose from. Once the direction was selected, we adapted the existing seat structure, developed the 3D data, and ultimately produced complete functional and design prototypes.
A particularly interesting part of the project was developing the two different seat variants. The first featured a premium leather finish with elaborate decorative stitching. It looked so convincing that a comment soon emerged: “Of course it looks this good—it would be way too expensive for series production.”
That gave us the idea to develop a second version using standard production materials. The result was a surprise: many of the people involved actually preferred this version—and it was calculated to cost less than the existing production seat.
For the prototypes, we drew on our network of specialized suppliers and craftspeople. While we don’t have an upholsterer in-house, we were able to coordinate the entire process as a single point of contact—from CNC milling the foam components and complete upholstery work to the final assembly and finishing of both functional and design models.
Our Services
2D Design Development
Detailed drawings, layouts and design refinement
3D Development
Creation of 3D data for prototyping and structural analysis
Prototype Development
CNC-milled foam components, complete upholstery, assembly and finishing of two functional and design prototypes
The result was a modern, sporty vehicle seat that successfully balanced technical requirements, cost targets and design expectations. In fact, the projected production cost came in below that of the existing seat.
Unfortunately, the project never made it into series production. Following Stellantis’ acquisition of Opel, the project was discontinued because the seat structure used for the development was contractually owned by GM.
