Hyphen, a London-based industrial design and development consultancy, was drafted in by global brand agency Fitch London and its client McLaren Automotive to help design and realise mobile customer configurator kits for the new McLaren MP4-12C supercar.
The unique kits include a full range of configurable options for the car – even down to the colours of the upholstery stitching and brake calipers.
Fitch developed the concept design of the case with McLaren, as part of a larger project to design the dealership experience and communication material. Hyphen was then tasked with taking Fitch’s loose concept design and turning it into reality: a robust, very high end product, and a perfect representation of the McLaren brand.
Considering ergonomics, usability, customer experience, quality and speed of manufacture, Hyphen had around seven months to not only develop and engineer the case and all its contents, but to manufacture, assemble and supply McLaren with 50 complete cases.
Despite the low numbers, Hyphen decided to invest in injection mould tooling for the main body components, with parts in ABS, for quality and robustness. Other materials of note include magnesium die-castings, for the paint option plaques, machined and polished acrylic parts, and a hand-made carbon fibre case lid.
The case was surface modelled and engineered in SolidWorks, and visualised using Hyphen’s visualiser of choice, Autodesk Showcase.
Hyphen is also supplying similar, shelf-mounted kits for inside the dealers.
