CAR TRENDS
Plants invade car cabins
Leather and carbon fibre vehicle interiors are giving way to vegan materials
Carbon fibre used to be the ultimate symbol when it came to showing just how much money you could spend on your car's interior. An expansive dash, custom-carved door panels and Nappa leather seats demonstrated to anyone who cared to look that this was an expensive, sporty and unique vehicle. But now it's time for plants. "Fifty years ago, a leather couch was the height of luxury," says Massimo Frascella, Land Rover's creative director, who is a vegan. "Now in the best hotels and homes you would never see that. It's a similar process with cars. Going forward, sustainable design is providing the framework for change." Frascella was in Manhattan during the New York auto show last month to unveil Land Rover's new line of leather-free, fully vegan materials developed to outfit its 2020 Range Rover Evoque, Range Rover Velar and Jaguar I-Pace SUVs. "There are a growing number of people who are concerned with the provenance of the textiles and materials in their vehicle," he says. The new i...
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