A long time ago, in (I believe) an issue of Car Magazine from the mid-1990s, the designer Gordon Murray shared his thoughts about a possible four-door follow-up to the McLaren F1.
Road cars weren’t really his thing. Until then, his career had been focused on Formula 1 car design, and he brought that sport’s obsession with weight savings with him. Were he to design a sedan, he’d trim the interior with textile, not leather. After all, wool made fine suits and coats, Murray reasoned, and it would save weight.
A four-door McLaren never happened during his tenure, nor has one appeared since. Murray now runs his own boutique hypercar company, which also builds no sedans. But the idea that high-end cars could use something other than leather has stuck with me, especially after driving BMW’s i7, which debuted in 2022 with a premium cashmere wool interior. More recently, new EVs have experimented with interesting textile alternatives to leather. Two good examples are the BMW iX3 and the Audi A6, though neither can be ordered with these textile options in the US.
It’s hardly the first time US-market cars have had different options. Our Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards insist on features like side reflectors, which Europe doesn’t need, and we maintain somewhat old headlight rules. You’re also unlikely to see any of the smaller-engined versions of luxury cars from German brands being offered for North American consumption. But it did make me wonder why we’re being left in the cold.
Here’s what they said
Credit: Audi When we saw a preview of the new Audi A6 in mid-2024, we were told this textile trim would not be coming to America. When we saw a preview of the new Audi A6 in mid-2024, we were told this textile trim would not be coming to America. Credit: Audi
We’re used to American Audis being a bit different. We couldn’t have the R8’s laser high beam headlights or the A6’s OLED animated taillights, and we’re not getting the station wagon version of that car, the A6 Avant, at all. Or the A5 Avant. I reached out to the automaker to ask why it didn’t think its American customers would go for the textile trim.