Chrysler Targets a More Tempting Interior

From The Wall Street Journal: Chrysler Targets a More Tempting Interior

Most new cars today offer decent power, competitive fuel economy and plenty of safety features. But it's design and comfort that can reel in the most demanding car buyers.

The overall design of the previous Chrysler 300, especially the exterior, stood out from the pack when it debuted in 2005. But customers, critics and the company's own design leaders gave the interior poor marks, and Chrysler's management decided in 2007 that it needed a thorough redo. And when Fiat SpA took control two years later as part of the company's U.S. government-financed restructuring, Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne backed spending more than $1 billion to improve the design of the company's vehicles.

Klaus Busse, a former Mercedes-Benz designer who is now head of Chrysler's interior design studio, says the goal of revamping the 300's interior was attainable because the premium materials used on the German cars circa 2007-2008—high-grade plastics, leathers and fabrics—would likely be lower-priced commodities by 2011 and 2012.

A team led by Jon Gaudreau, 36, was charged with the redesign of the 300's interior. Mr. Gaudreau had worked on the interiors and exteriors of a series of cars and trucks since starting at Chrysler in 1997. The 300's interior was the first in which he took the lead and stayed with from start to finish. The exterior redesign was led by Lou Gasevski, 29, whose portfolio includes the futuristic interior of the all-electric 2008 show car, the Dodge Zeo.

Sales of the revamped 300 were up 50% in September from a year earlier. While the No. 1 car against which the new 300 is compared isn't a BMW, but the smaller, redesigned Chrysler 200 sedan, a few more shoppers are gauging the 300 against German cars, according to data from auto-shopping site Edmunds.com.

Here are a few design tricks Chrysler's teams employed.

Tricking the Eye
Many customers told Chrysler that they wanted the 300 to be roomier inside. Mr. Gaudreau's team couldn't make the car bigger. So they designed a dashboard that slopes away from the driver—a trick that makes the new 300 feel less like a rolling bank vault.

The latest model's new, 8.4-inch navigation screen presented a problem, too. On its own, the touch screen looked like a vertical slab of grey glass. So designers framed it with air vents to give the array a more horizontal look, tied into the arc of the dash.

Faux Versus Real
To keep costs down, the Chrysler 300's designers couldn't specify hand-crafted leather or rare woods throughout the cabin. But they could opt for better looking plastics.

To give a high-tech look to the new 300S—a variant of the 300 line aimed at younger, urban consumers—designers wanted to replace traditional wood grain in the center console with carbon fiber. Real carbon fiber is too expensive, so they used a so-called hydrographic finish that mimics the three-dimensional checkerboard look of carbon fiber.

One part of the car where designers pushed for spending extra was the steering wheel, where the 2012 300C and 300S models have shift paddles.

The "default" choice would have been to make these of plastic, Mr. Gaudreau says. Designers wanted them made out of real metal to give a more substantial feel to a part of the car customers would likely touch every day.

Real metal and leather on the wheel cost extra, but the luxurious feel was worth it, says Mr. Busse.

Balancing Retro and Modern
Most new cars are purchased by older people, so designers juggle elements, searching for a balance between what's hip and what's reassuring. The Chrysler 300 has a clock with minute and second hands in the center of the dashboard. It also has old-school gauges with needle indicators set inside chrome cylinders—a look right out of Detroit's 1950s handbook.

But at night these gauges are bathed in an icy, blue light generated by light-emitting diodes. Mr. Gaudreau says LEDs allow lighting to be used more easily throughout the interior as a design feature because they are cool and don't require the sockets and fixtures needed for incandescent bulbs.

The 'Catwalk'
Auto designers have a unique vocabulary to identify parts of a car that most of us don't think about.

The 2012 Chrysler 300 has a narrow, horizontal plane on top of the rear fenders that Mr. Gasevski calls "the catwalk." The sharply defined shoulder makes the 300 distinct in a crowd of rounded off sedans.

To accentuate the line, the new tail lights have a thin, chrome-outlined, vertical strip down the middle that functions as an extension of the "catwalk." What do they call it? A "light pipe."