"On the 5th entry to the series, we finally begin creating the new Strada seat covers. I start with my reasoning to an anti-climatic selection of materials.

I then document the processes to tracing and cutting all sections of the new covers. I touch on the foundational materials used on underside of your covers to prolong their life."
- Matt

Selecting the right materials. 

As a lead up to selecting the right materials for my Strada seat covers, it's useful to contextualize my thought process. I hope it helps you when you will embark upon your own material selection. 

In an entry titled "Choice, the problem is choice!", I previously documented the extensive material selection possibilities as part of the development and re-creation of my M3 V8's BMW Performance seats. 

Written in 2023, it was my first experience going through the process of creating complete seats for one of my cars. I was rigidly set on re-creating the original BMW Performance to outmost exactitude.

I felt it's what the market wanted. 

Along the way, we developed new techniques, gained access to modern materials and created ever more premium customization options. The process reminded me why I get up every day to work on EuroConnex: my intentions to restore and modernize my BMW M cars in ways that I love.

It's unashamedly a self-centered approach: everything else is an auxiliary benefit - or collateral damage. Your choices as part of the Bespoke seat program will inherently follow a similar ego centrical approach - they are matters of personal taste.

Whatever you choose, do you - and make no apologies for it. 

Original Equipement Plus. 

I touched on the original interior specifications of the Phoenix in "Plastic Realities": the signature M-Texture paired with Nappa black leather.

The original M-Texture found in my 2003 E46 M3 was unfortunately dirty, decayed and unglued in some section. The original cloth pillars were ungluing and the rear shelf had faded to blue.

I chose to upgrade materials over replacing with original components: new carbon parts were fitted and the entire upper section of the interior was redone in Alcantara. Further restoration and modernization of the complete dash, door cards and rear bench were planned.

How this translates to my material choices for the Phoenix is consequently anti-climatic: the Strada covers would make use of factory-matching materials.

Unfortunately, 2024 had its share of unforeseen expenses. I postponed the remainder of the E46's interior work to 2025. 

M-Texture Reproduction.

I sourced M-Texture from the US source I originally used for the Pole Position inserts previously developed for the Phoenix in 2022. The company-I-will-not-name is a popular source for BMW M fabrics. 

We unfortunately faced a fundamental problem. 

In short, the original M-Texture, and the reproduction fabric previously ordered in 2022 used a perforated Alcantara layer in Anthracite grey. This new roll of M-Texture was delivered with a Black perforated layer. In the entry documenting the creation of the inserts, I touched on the differences.

No credible solutions were offered. 

Since then, we have established direct connections with trustworthy European fabric factories that produce the M-Texture reproductions and all other fabrics available in the program. 

We were on the clock and had no alternative. As the entire interior's M-Texture would eventually be redone, we proceeded with the darker variant.

The alignment challenge. 

Working with M-Texture is intricate: it needs to be aligned before any cutting and stitching work is performed. This signature fabric has many variables to consider: 

1. It has 3x colors: purple. blue and red.
2. It has 2x varying widths: single and dual dotted lines.
3. It has distinct repeated patterns on the vertical and horizontal axis. 

Achieving alignment between sections is a one aspect of the challenge, the other is what alignment?

Red is the dominant color on this fabric: it catches your eyes first. It's the natural choice to center the pattern.

We chose differently, using the purple line as our vertical center. The purple vertical line is the geometrically sound choice as it is sandwiched between the red and light blue lines. 

The end result would create a visual offset effect due to the dominant color. I liked the quirky imperfection - very 1990s.

There is personal taste at play, and some common sense. If you choose M-Texture for your Bespoke inserts or seats, we will provide you with alignment options for your final approval. 

After aligning the sections across the M-Texture, they were traced, cut and test fitted to validate our alignment choices. 

Nappa black leather. 

Nappa is the original grain and type of leather used in the BMW E46 M3. It is a bovine top grain leather commonly used in luxury automotive applications. 

In staying within the original material used in the Phoenix, hides of Nappa black leather were imported from Italy for my Strada seats. You can learn more about the leather types offered in the Bespoke Recaro seat program here.

A hide is a complete skin of a deceased animal - it isn't homogenous in shape and texture.

We inspected the hide for any defects, tears and wrinkles from high tension areas. Problematic areas were identified. All the Strada templates were then laid out across the hide; their outline and alignment marks were traced.

The entire tracing and cutting process was hand-made for my Strada seats. We will be able to increase production efficiencies using laser cutting once we settle on the final templates, and get them digitalized. 

As these are the first of their kind, we retained complete human control. 

Alcantara.

Cloth is used on Recaro's original covers at the bottom of the backrest and the front of the lower section. They are inconspicuous areas; you will not see them once the seats are bolted in the chassis. 

Still, every detail matters; we would make use of Alcantara instead. The templates for the 3x sections were created, traced and cut accordingly. 

Underside secrets. 

The leathers and fabrics used to create original Recaro covers are padded with materials designed to enhance comfort, aesthetics and durability of your covers. They reduce the bagging effects, indicative of inexpensive, poorly made covers. 

These materials are called fleece backing. 

They come in different types and composition - usually selected and combined in accordance with the covers' design, expected use and price point. 

We inspected and analyzed the original Recaro CS covers' underside to understand the materials used. We found Recaro uses 2x main material types across the standard Sportster CS covers: natural and synthetic.

1. Natural fiber is wool taken from Merino sheep: it is highly breathable, and acts as a cold and heat insulator. 
2. Synthetic fiber is foam, it's a stiffer material best used on larger surfaces. 

You'll notice Recaro made use of wool on the outer section on the cover, partly due to the wool's better stretchability. For context, we discovered Recaro chose wool across the entire underside upon cutting the original BMW Performance seat covers.

For science, we chose to reproduce Recaro's combination of synthetic and wool backing on my Strada CS seats. The re-creation of the BMW Performance seats would have all wool backing. 

The backing process. 

The fleece backing fibers are originally pre-assembled with the covers during mass production processes using heat lamination. It's a high volume, industrial method that is not suitable for shop work.

Instead, we would use self adhesive material using 3M products. We imported natural and synthetic fleece backing to match the original Recaro Sportster CS covers' underside. 

In the pictures below, wool backing is identified with the blue removable film whereas foam backing is all white. 

Margins for stitching. 

The process involves tracing all sections of the seat once more across the correct backing material.

The underside backing needs to be further cut, with significant margins of the covers' leather and fabric left unbacked. The exposed material is required to cut the alignment marks and have surface area for subsequent stitching work.

This step in the process will also eventually be performed by digital laser cutting machines. For the purpose of developing the Strada design, we completed the entire process ourselves. 

With all sections of the Strada seats now fully cut and backed, we could proceed with stitching the covers together. 

But first: the Recaro logo gets stamped. 

Up next: I document the development work to emboss logos, how we upscaled stitches, and we stitch the covers together.