From Bare Bones to Bespoke Luxury — The Evolution of Supercar Interiors

When we talk about aesthetics, we’re almost always talking about exterior styling, paint colours, wheels and carbon fibre bits. But, we’re called Supercar Driver for a reason, and we advocate spending more time behind the wheel driving your car than you do drooling over it in the garage, so maybe, just maybe, the interior of your supercar is even more important than the exterior.

As we covered when we talked about aesthetics through the eras, there was a time when your interior was your interior, and that was that. You had a seat, a wheel, and a stick to change gears with (what was all that about?). If you were lucky, you might be able to choose what colour leather covered those surfaces, and that was you.

But then, in the last 10 years or so, factory customisation has gone through the roof, and that’s before we even touch on personalisation programmes if your wallet wasn’t already milked dry enough. 

Before you customise a thing though, your car's interior tells you a lot about its character:

The Germans — Solid and functional. Visibility is impeccable too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place to be, but nothing overly flashy like those silly Italians.

The Italians — Carbon fibre in all shapes and sizes, and enough stitching to put together a tapestry. Some of it makes no sense, you can't see where you're going, but it’s a special place to be.

The British — We love our engineering so it's functional, but with a quirky, British twist. We like things to feel like a bloke who's been at the factory for 30 years stitched our leather himself with pride.

The Steering Wheel

Let's take a moment to honour the humble (once humble, anyway) steering wheel. The very thing you're connected to (or so I hope) for the whole time you're driving your car. In the '70s and '80s, there was very little to talk about. Your steering wheel was just that, a wheel with some (likely metal) spokes to attach the rim to the column, then in the '90s airbags came into play and that wheel looked like something out of a big Mercedes, even if it was in a Lamborghini Diablo. Thankfully, manufacturers quickly worked out how to make airbags less ugly!

Then, the 2000s came and brought buttons along with it. These took longer to reach supercars than your daily driver, but they came, and Ferrari went to town on them, even putting your turn signals, wipers, suspension and driving modes on the wheel. There's something nice about being able to dial the traction control up and down barely moving more than your little finger, but turning your music up to 11 or cancelling your navigation when your hand slips during a spirited turn is less convenient.

It's all about balance, but there's something refreshing when you drive an old car with nothing but a button for its horn on the wheel. It's even better if it's an old Ferrari, and said horn sounds like a clown is pulling into town.

Personalisation

So you’ve got the blank canvas, and today’s array of options and customisation programmes let you go as wild as a high-end interior designer in your new living room. Ferrari Tailor Made, Lamborghini Ad Personam, McLaren Special Operations and Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur all allow you to go above and beyond a select few choices to make your car truly unique to you.

Want your seats in the same leather as your wife’s favourite handbag? Of course, sir. Want your name stitched in the headrests like an early 2000s rapper? Erm, if you insist. Want your dashboard trim in the wood of a tree from your back garden? Why not?!

The possibilities are endless, and that’s why there are some mighty questionable examples of taste on social media, but also why there are so many examples that make you say wow, that’s amazing. Something so much more special than if the owner had just settled on the standard black leather, and when you spend so much of your time behind the wheel, why not make it feel special?

The details matter. As you drive along, you can’t see your body kit or wheels, but you can see that two-tone leather you specced, you can see your swathes of carbon fibre trim, you can see that contrasting stitching. You’ll sure have paid for it, and it’s debatable whether that cost will ever be recouped come resale, but you will have something unique, something exactly the way you want it, and you bought the car for yourself, right?

The Future

I’m not quite sure what to make of the future of interior personalisation. We’ve gone through a period where we could change everything from our gear lever to our rev counter to our climate control surround trim, but wait, we don’t have gear levers anymore, we don’t have rev counters anymore, we don’t have climate controls anymore. When everything is just a big screen, there isn’t much left to customise.

Sure, we’ll still be able to change our seats and stitching colours, but I can’t help feeling we’re going backwards in terms of both style and usability. A BMW M3 used to have totally different dials to a 320i, but now what do they do? They just reprogram the same big screen to show a more sporty-looking display. And that same big screen is limiting the creative flair of interior designers, because the whole thing has to be designed to accommodate said big screen, which no one really wants in the first place. Do the manufacturers think it’s what we want, or is it just cheaper to install the same big screen in every car rather than manufacturing bespoke dials and multimedia displays? Who knows.

For me, the 2010s were the sweet spot. I’m sure some of you will love the latest tech, and some of you will like the real old stuff, where there was nothing to distract you from driving. I admittedly can’t live without Apple CarPlay, so having some tech to hand is great, but I want it with a level of class, with a nicely integrated screen rather than an iPad glued to the dash, a real rev counter, and lord, please, real buttons