First of the new models we’re working on: 2011 BMW 535i
In an effort to start offering products to new makes and models, we recently put a call out to see if we could find some high end car owners willing to send us their interior trim so we could work our magic. The first person we found was a 2011 535i owner, and he got us his trim pretty quick. We’re about halfway through his set, so we figured we’d share the progress.
The OEM trim is an aluminum stamped trim that looks okay. You’ll notice its got a nice chrome accent edge, which we’ll retain. It also has some nice contours on the pieces which we will try to keep as much as we can (the thickness of the fabric will dilute them a bit, but they still should be noticeable).
First step is to remove the chrome edges and peel back the aluminum. After that is completed, we grind down to plastic to make room for the carbon and to give the epoxy something to adhere too.
Then we cut the fabric down to size and get it ready for wrapping. We went with an 11oz 2×2 twill on this set. I wanted to do a 20oz 2×2 twill, but I was afraid of it being too thick and there being fit issues with the chrome accent on some of the pieces.
And now the fun begins and the set starts to take shape.
The door pieces are a lot thinner without the chrome accents. You can see the contours have been retained.
The dash piece is massive.
Love this shifter piece. I can’t wait to see how it looks finished.
That’s it for now. We’ll get epoxy on these over the next few days and do another update then.
To get an idea of how this will look finished, check our gallery, in particular the gallery of an e90 BMW:
http://ocarbon.com/gallery/bmw/patrick
