It's been a roller coaster with R&D on our P85+ and we wanted to share some of the progress we've made on our way to showing the first heavily modified Model S to the world at the huge SEMA show in Las Vegas this week.
Just about a month ago, a little before the "D" launch event near our office in Hawthorne, our car looked a like this with all of our Unplugged Version 1 parts and our Adv1 22 inch wheel set installed.
We then decided to blow it all up since we had nearly finished re-engineering all of our Version 2 production parts and were ready to make some changes. So we decided to tear the car down to almost a bare frame and go a little bit crazy. Pretty soon it looked like this:
And it was a little challenging to move the car around with no interior.
With the clock running for our SEMA debut on 11/4 and needing to deliver the car to Las Vegas 11/2 we didn't have much time to get it back in one piece. With the seats out for some re-engineering we took the time to lay down some Rolls Royce carpeting across the entire interior.
We also got to work with as intense of a vinyl wrap job as we've ever done. All the doors came off and even the invisible parts of the car were given lots of very blue TLC.
While the car was in pieces we went through a few different variations but finally settled on the design for our new sports seats with just the right amount of additional bolstering and support for spirited driving. These got the custom Lamborghini alcantara finish but we will be releasing these on a trade in basis for all standard interior finishes.
Upgraded Sport Headlights were also finished in the nick of time. These have a crisper cut-off which means the light is better concentrated for improved visibility. The black finished interior gives a sporty look and the custom laser etched projector lenses look great at night.
It was a relief to see the interior start coming back together. We're sure the choice of materials accented with red (!) Porsche-style sport seat belts will cause some divided opinions.
We were thrilled with the progress but we were so far from the finish line.
More to come!
Just about a month ago, a little before the "D" launch event near our office in Hawthorne, our car looked a like this with all of our Unplugged Version 1 parts and our Adv1 22 inch wheel set installed.
We then decided to blow it all up since we had nearly finished re-engineering all of our Version 2 production parts and were ready to make some changes. So we decided to tear the car down to almost a bare frame and go a little bit crazy. Pretty soon it looked like this:
And it was a little challenging to move the car around with no interior.
With the clock running for our SEMA debut on 11/4 and needing to deliver the car to Las Vegas 11/2 we didn't have much time to get it back in one piece. With the seats out for some re-engineering we took the time to lay down some Rolls Royce carpeting across the entire interior.
We also got to work with as intense of a vinyl wrap job as we've ever done. All the doors came off and even the invisible parts of the car were given lots of very blue TLC.
While the car was in pieces we went through a few different variations but finally settled on the design for our new sports seats with just the right amount of additional bolstering and support for spirited driving. These got the custom Lamborghini alcantara finish but we will be releasing these on a trade in basis for all standard interior finishes.
Upgraded Sport Headlights were also finished in the nick of time. These have a crisper cut-off which means the light is better concentrated for improved visibility. The black finished interior gives a sporty look and the custom laser etched projector lenses look great at night.
It was a relief to see the interior start coming back together. We're sure the choice of materials accented with red (!) Porsche-style sport seat belts will cause some divided opinions.
We were thrilled with the progress but we were so far from the finish line.
More to come!
