With so much fiberglass and plastic in today's cars, it's easy to forget that interiors once featured intricate woodwork. In fact, it used to be that auto trimmers needed carpentry skills in order to build, fix or customize vehicle interiors. But as automakers sought to make their cars more affordable, wood styling either disappeared entirely or was replaced with stickers and plastic parts designed to look like the real thing.
In The Hog Ring's latest article, we take a look at how Bentley incorporates woodwork in its vehicle interiors and ask our readers if they think carpentry is an essential part of the trade?
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I don't know about these days , but in the late 70's it was common to replace the springs on the drivers seat of a taxi with blocks of wood, I did come across one with house bricks supporting the seat,but the driver did that, but a few of the more dodgy shops used wood. Probably not much need for it now as most taxi drivers in Australia these days are Indian students or African refugees who are all very skinny. :)
True, it was more common back in the day. However, shops that do a lot of customization work - especially to dashboards and consoles - find that they still employ woodwork in their designs.