When Will New Cars Be Customisable By The Masses?
Author: admin
It is well known that if you buy a brand new car, you get some nifty customising options. You can have an influence on the colour, or the interior spec. You can select body kits, or car mats, or whether or not your sporty little number ought to have a go faster stripe. You can, in essence, customise it. This isn’t the case for all cars, but most give the people willing to shell-out on them in all their new-car-smell glory a set of benefits to make it slightly more worth their while.
This is, of course, all very well and good. However, when it comes down to it, picking from a small number of pre-chosen options isn’t really a fountain pof creativity. With the technology we have I am surprised that we don’t have more “free” creativity – allowing even buys of budget cars to really and truly “customise” their vehicles.
Take, for example, body wraps. And no, not of the deep sea mud and worm variety. I’m talking about the kind of body wraps that can allow you to have a leopard print smart car if you so desire. A matte black Range Rover. I am surprised that no hip and funky car brands or models have made the move to offer truly customisable straight-off-the-production-line body wraps, where customers upload their own images or create designs using special software when they order. The work is more butobviously car brands could charge a premium, the body wrapping could be automated and it is just the printing/making that is individual.
With interiors too, I wonder why we can’t do more. Why are out choice of interior leather limited to brown, beige and multiple shades of grey. WOuld it not be worth the invesment to supply a true range of fabric options and mulitple tickable boxes allow an interestior that is as individual as you are. If the process es are created intelligently, it could be a real marketing piece that can still be automated (albeit with morecomplicated stages).
The point is thus. The customisable nature of the new Mitsubishi i-MiEV may be news worthy (and it is certainly more flexible than most!), but as an ever-demanding customer I would want the ability to kit the car out with a floral exterior wrap I put together myself, multiple pieces of random body kit, a spotted clashing leather interior and wheels with pink alloys. Pwetty please?