Personalised cabin furniture promises optimised comfort
Porsche is attempting to revolutionise the design of sports seats: the company presents an innovative alternative to conventional bucket seat upholstery with the concept study 3D-printed bodyform full-bucket seat. As the name suggests, the central section of the seat is largely produced by a 3D printer. Customers will be able to choose between three firmness levels (hard, medium, soft). With this new technology, the manufacturer is once again underlining its close ties to motorsport — the personalised sports seat follows the principles of driver-specific fitting, which is now customary in professional racing environments.
“The seat is the interface between the human and the vehicle, and is thus important for precise, sporty handling. That’s why personalised seat shells customised for the driver have been standard in race cars for many years,” said Michael Steiner, Member of the Executive Board for Research and Development at Porsche. “With this new concept study, we’re once again giving customers of Porsche production cars the opportunity to experience technology carried over from our pioneering motorsport programme. In addition to an ergonomic fit similar to that found in works race cars, this seat also delivers a unique design, lower weight, improved comfort and passive climate control,” he explained.
The new design will be available from Porsche Tequipment as a driver’s seat for the 911 992 and 718 982/982C ranges from May. The range will initially be limited to forty seat prototypes for use on European race tracks. Feedback from customers will be incorporated into the development process. As a next step, street-legal seats in different colours will be available from Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur from mid-2021. In the long term, the technology will also enable fully personalised solutions if there’s sufficient interest — seats adapted to the individual customer’s specific body contour will be developed and offered.
