Build journal

The Strada CS.

In this Series, I document the development and creation of the Strada CS for my E46 M3 as part of the Bespoke Recaro seat program.

Enjoy,
- Matt

Strada CS ·Feb 04, 2025

Strada: creating luxury.

by Matt Di Vita

"In the first entry to this Series, I discuss the intentions behind creating the Strada CS for my E46 M3 as part of the Bespoke Recaro seat program. I take you through the iterative design process of creating luxury."
- Matt

The comfort problem.

In 2022, I had originally replaced the E46 M3's original seats with Recaro Pole Position ABE. They were customized with Bespoke inserts using M-Texture reproduction fabric. I documented the process to create the inserts here.

I was able to drive the Phoenix for a short while in the Fall of 2022. I quickly understood the Pole Positions wouldn't do it for my planned use. The Phoenix is destined to be a Sunday driver for long, unplanned drives.

At roughly 6'1 and 210 lbs, the shoulder fitment was tight. My body shape and ergonomics of the seat pull on my lower back. After 3 hour drives, the strain was felt severely and I didn't look my age stepping out of the car.

Classic, basic and comfort.

In July 2023, I imported various sets of Sportster CS in preparation for the launch of the Bespoke Recaro seat program. I sought to document the development history of Recaro's Sportster lineup and the intricate craftsmanship details of the seats.

The "Examining a classic" compares the quality differences between various upholstery options. Earlier that year, I documented the comparaison between the original BMW Performance seat and the Sportster CS upon which it is based. The entry "How different can they really be?" was eye-opening.

When Recaro's CS craftsmanship is compared to BMW Performance seats, it begins to unravel at the seams. Ultimately, the Recaro Sportster CS is a mass production, universal seat. One cannot expect it to perfectly blend into any car's interior design.

In a vacuum, the Sportster CS are great seats: they are beautiful, comfortable, and timeless.

Upscaling the CS.

Plans were made to upscale Phoenix's entire interior far beyond the original E46 M3 with extensive use of Alcantara and Nappa leather recovered surfaces. Carbon and aluminum inserts would be carefully selected for certain sections of the interior.

As seats are evidently at the core of any interior, I wanted something special.

The expected path forward would have been to retrim the Sportster CS with Nappa leather and M-Texture for the center sections. I feel it would have fallen short of the expectations set for this car.

We set our minds to upscaling the Sportster CS starting from a simple question: How does one design luxury?

It's the underlying hard problem that we're trying to solve. Higher quality materials are an obvious part of the answer, but not entirely. The seat cover's design needed to be revised and upscaled.

We understood that any design and pattern changes to the seat would imply reworking the underlying foam. I touched on the foam make over techniques used in the re-creation BMW Performance in the entry "The foam makeover begins.".

In order to iterate on new design patterns, we pulled the covers off the seats. The standard Sportster CS is a far simpler, less expensive foam design to produce than the original BMW Performance.

Complexity, simplicity - and branding.

The original Recaro Sportster CS's backrest and its center sections have large surfaces area primed for a new design. It's simplicity make it a classic, but also somewhat bland.

The original BMW Performance's center section design was far more complex with the addition of protruding ribs.

However, BMW simplified the standard CS's headrest by eliminating stitched sections across the headrest and between the harness slots. The newly created seamless headrest section was used to embroider the BMW Performance logo.

Branding would also play a part in upscaling the seats.

We mulled over these ideas knowing we had new techniques to experiment with. We had been developing stamping dies of the Recaro and BMW Performance logos. The dies require precise machining specifications and alloys.

Furthermore, we had to develop techniques that allows us to deboss and emboss.

The different material properties of Alcantara and natural leather each present their own challenges - each leather type have their own properties that need to be accounted fo to avoid burning and scaring the materials.

The end results are unique 3D aesthetics that have rarely been seen on Recaro seats. With the intention to modernize the interior, the 3D embossing was the more luxurious choice over classic embroideries.

Where should we reposition the branding? The headrest section is an evident choice, however our RECARO stamping is larger than the original printed logo on the standard Sportster design.

It would require us to fill in the foam to eliminate the 2x vertical lines on the headrest. It would also be too obvious, and that isn't luxury for us. Still, the branding needed to be seen once the seat would be bolted in the car.

We taped off the original Recaro logo and centered the embossing test at shoulder levels.

Stepping back, we liked this. We grossly sketched lines curving down and connected to the outer section of the cover. The new line creates a 3rd center section to the cover, adding complexity to the cover design.

There were two geometrically sound options to trace the section into the cover: we could curve it down to the horizontal line, or into the first angle of the outer cover where the armpits sit.

We all agreed the first angle to the outer cover was the more aesthetically pleasing line.

With the design agreed upon, we committed to it by proceeding with the final irreversible cuts into the original CS cover.

Creating the crown.

I introduced the notion of templates during the re-creation of the BMW Performance seats, notably in the entry "Patrons & Puzzles".

Templates are fundamental to streamlining the production processes by ensuring any future reproduction of this design would be accurate. They include all the markers required to precisely re-created the original designs with no variance from Recaro's assembly process. Every hook, clip and other pieces that connect the cover to the foam are retained.

Knowledge acquired and many templates of the BMW Performance seat would be re-used in this process making the development and production of the Strada CS seat more efficient.

The most critical template would be for the new upper center section. As the seat is symmetrical, one side was outlined onto the cardboard from the cut out piece. It would then be mirrored to ensure perfect symmetry.

With the template created, we needed to re-create the branding's position that we previously signed off on. This would ensure precise positioning of the branding during the stamping process. The same logic would apply if this was an embroidery.

This template is specifically made for the Recaro branding. If we were to use the BMW Performance stamping, a new template would be created in accordance with the larger measurements.

Does this look like a crown to you? Luxury was visibly on our mind at all times.

The new lower sections.

With the upper section completed, we sought to create further symmetric in the seat's design by divide the lower center section. It create two rectangular sections below the crown. It elevates the aesthetics of the seat by creating the appearances of a taller middle section.