McLaren SLR HDK - Project Volcano

This year saw the d:class team return to Las Vegas for the Sema show. This year was substantially different from 2023 as we brought a car we had retrimmed to unveil on the ARMO stand.

The body work on this McLaren was created by the talented team at McLaren Special Operations, and interior by d:class automotive with Formation Industries.

The trip was a huge success, which saw us walk away with the Fan Favourite Interior 2024, voted for by members of the public.

In episode 1 we show you the entire retrim process to creating a show winning interior for the SLR HDK.

Every single member of staff at d:class had their part to play by trimming something in the car. Even the office staff, myself included, writing this now.

There were some financial speedbumps and dramas along the way; all is explained in Episode 1 of Project Volcano.

In episode 2 we show you what the team got up to in Las Vegas and how the SLR HDK went down at SEMA.

The seats are probably the most stand-out feature of the car's interior. The spec on this vehicle is very vibrant to say the least. Our customer likes their vehicles to be memorable, and we think this has been achieved with the orange Alcantara.

To pay respects to the SLR 722 GT and its tartan interior, we wanted an orange tartan to match this. However, they did not make an orange tartan. This is where Formation Industries comes in. Formation Industries can create essentially anything you can think of. We have worked with Chris for many years on plenty of projects, so we set Chris the task of recreating tartan through his lasering machine. As you can see, this came out perfectly and we had to explain to many people at SEMA that it is indeed lasered Alcantara. Note the SLR HDK lasered belt straps and SLR HDK silhouette in the headrests.

Before the retrim, it was just your standard black leather OEM SLR wheel. We wanted to do something standout but not overwhelming. It needed to impress but not shock. Originally we were meant to retrim the wheel orange, but decided this was too much, so we then made some Photoshops of the top and bottom sections being orange, but this still didn't fit the criteria. Finally, we agreed on a black Alcantara wheel with an orange Alcantara racing band. We then thought, "How can we make this special?" and as we were doing plenty of lasering, we added a small laser-etched speed mark to the racing band. Such a small feature really does make a huge difference.

Photo by Tim Scott - @timscott

As mentioned above in the Seat section, all of our lasering was accomplished by Chris and Marc from Formation Industries. The tartan pattern was made to perfectly mimic the shape and texture of a real piece of tartan material. We have since had samples come through with this pattern on a variety of different colours which we now offer as part of any retrims.

Not only did Formation Industries laser our seats, but this pattern was repeated onto the headlining and door cards. The dashboard saw multiple SRS Airbag emblems lasered into the dash top and lower dash panels. The floor mats also feature "SLR HDK" logos repeatedly creating a pattern.

The dashboard went through many variations before we arrived at what you see now. We was unsure of which panels to trim orange, and those black. We knew it would be Alcantara and that it would be plain with some lasering badges. On the SLR interiors, the dashboard flows through to the door cards, so this decision would essentially dictate the entire flow of the retrim. In our final photoshops we have it where the centre console is black, but a last minute decisions resulted in it being orange.

Photo by Tim Scott - @timscott