Starting on a Cadillac CTS-V set…

A former Audi customer of mine contacted me a few weeks ago about doing a custom set of carbon fiber trim for his 2008 Cadillac CTS-V.  I’ve always wanted to do a higher end American car, especially one that performs as well as the CTS-V, so I happily obliged.  The trim I got from him is pretty standard, 4 door pieces, 3 slender dash pieces (two smaller ones on each side of the steering wheel and one longer one in front of the passenger seat), as well as a piece on either side of the shifter.

Pretty disappointing that GM would use this patterned sticker stuff over plastic trim.  This is the kind of stuff you’d expect on a base model.  Not really sure if it is supposed to replicate carbon fiber or a type of aluminum or what, but I can understand why people would want to change it out.

The customer indicated he wanted a custom 4×4 twill fabric, instead of the standard 2×2 twill fabric (a 1×1 fabric, also known as plain, is woven over, under, over, under.  2×2 would be over over, under under.  4×4 fabric is over over over over, under under under under).

The first step is laying out the pieces on the fabric and cutting it down to the correct size.

Next we start the basic wrap, slowly smoothing the fabric over each piece, ensuring the weave is straight and undistorted.

After a little while with the scissors and some tape, the pieces are done.

I was particularly proud of this piece.

The fabric wrapped around this edge perfectly.

The non-door pieces were a little more difficult and time consuming, but I was able to get them laid and was happy with how they turned out.

After this has a bit of time to cure, I’ll start brushing on epoxy and building the pieces up.  Stay tuned for more progress on these pieces in the coming weeks.