Wooden Trim
Author
Discussion

Petrolhead_Rich

Original Poster:

4,659 posts

215 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Looking on Autotrader/Ebay/PH Classifieds at the weekend at some quite tasty motors, OH keeps saying oh thats nice, click to the interior then "oh, no thats horrible", confused I set about finding out why, eventually she explains its the wood on the dashboard/door cards that she thinks is horrible...

Thinking she was being ridiculous, I asked her mum for an opinion, straight away she pipes up "err, no, wood in a car looks awful" then tells me how OH's dad was going to get wood in their car but she made him get the brushed aluminium instead.

Personally I think wood is a nice touch on a car and gives it some personality, unless its British Leyland wood, which is awful!

I'm particularly interested to see if this is a female thing....

Mazdarese

21,197 posts

210 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Most 'plaswood' is awful. The only nice wood really is the proper stuff, burr walnut in a Roller for example. yes

neilski

2,563 posts

258 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Why not start a poll? whistle

Bill

57,211 posts

278 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Funnily enough I was wondering this this morning as my brother's bought an A8 with the foulest wood trim you can imagine (and a mushroom coloured steering wheel eek) and I was trying to think of a wood trim interior I like.

Obviously old RRs, Bentleys and Bristols are good but I can't remember another that I like.

hornetrider

63,161 posts

228 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Depends on the car.

I think the wood in an E39 looks terrible, for example. Just wrong wrong wrong.

In an XJ40 on the other hand...

anonymous-user

77 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Depends on the marque really. 'Some' of the wood trim in BMW's tends to look alright IMO, but a lot of Fords in Ghia trim have the most horrendous looking wood-you-believe-it dashboards imaginable yuck

Petrolhead_Rich

Original Poster:

4,659 posts

215 months

Monday 8th November 2010
quotequote all
OK, at risk of getting flamed for my choices...

I was looking at:

BMW 750
Range Rover (M-P reg ones), although I will accept the interior in those is a bit ste anyway...
Audi A8
BMW 5 Series

And to prove the point (but met with the same response)

VW Phaeton


Petrolhead_Rich

Original Poster:

4,659 posts

215 months

Monday 8th November 2010
quotequote all
neilski said:
Why not start a poll? whistle
Had I have been given the privilege, this may have been an option open to me, but I'm still waiting on that one!!

Good Stalking.... thumbup

Dracoro

8,981 posts

268 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Can't be any worse than that horrid faux-carbon-fibre that many cars have, esp bmws.

Silver/aluminuium trim can look crap too, scratch central, esp Fords.

Ultimately it's down to personal preference and whether it "suits" the car. Wood would look stupid in my S2000 but is pretty inoffensive in my Omega. It's that or have more acres of black plastic.

Major Fallout

5,278 posts

254 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Buy the car you want, then spray the wood black.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

213 months

Monday 8th November 2010
quotequote all
Petrolhead_Rich said:
Looking on Autotrader/Ebay/PH Classifieds at the weekend at some quite tasty motors, OH keeps saying oh thats nice, click to the interior then "oh, no thats horrible", confused I set about finding out why, eventually she explains its the wood on the dashboard/door cards that she thinks is horrible...

Thinking she was being ridiculous, I asked her mum for an opinion, straight away she pipes up "err, no, wood in a car looks awful" then tells me how OH's dad was going to get wood in their car but she made him get the brushed aluminium instead.

Personally I think wood is a nice touch on a car and gives it some personality, unless its British Leyland wood, which is awful!

I'm particularly interested to see if this is a female thing....
I like wood in a car, but never really seen any German cars pull it off and too many modern ones have gone all German like and cock it up too...... rolleyes









But these I like yes

Edited by 300bhp/ton on Monday 8th November 14:11

kambites

70,713 posts

244 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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It does tend to look terrible in most cars, but that probably wouldn't stop me from buying one if everything else was right.

Zod

35,295 posts

281 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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300bhp/ton said:
Petrolhead_Rich said:
Looking on Autotrader/Ebay/PH Classifieds at the weekend at some quite tasty motors, OH keeps saying oh thats nice, click to the interior then "oh, no thats horrible", confused I set about finding out why, eventually she explains its the wood on the dashboard/door cards that she thinks is horrible...

Thinking she was being ridiculous, I asked her mum for an opinion, straight away she pipes up "err, no, wood in a car looks awful" then tells me how OH's dad was going to get wood in their car but she made him get the brushed aluminium instead.

Personally I think wood is a nice touch on a car and gives it some personality, unless its British Leyland wood, which is awful!

I'm particularly interested to see if this is a female thing....
I like wood in a car, but never really seen any German cars pull it off and too many modern ones have gone all German like and cock it up too...... rolleyes
The only one of those I like (and it's only nostalgia, becasue my Dad had one) is the Jag Series III. It still has more than a hint of Maxi dash with better wood though (the glovebox handle is the same for example and because my Mum had a Maxi at the same time as my Dad had the Jag, I can tell you that the quality of fit and the feel of the components was pretty similar):



The rest are utterly awful, the S Type and the Aston in particular.


andyps

7,819 posts

305 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Proper wood used to hold things in place can look very good, fake wood stuck on to enhance the appearance rarely does in my view.

From the OP's list of cars I think it looks good in the Range Rover, not convinced with the others.

The first car I used much had this interior:


Garlick

40,601 posts

263 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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I quite like the walnut in my 124 paperbag

Accelebrate

5,561 posts

238 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Some cars it works well, even on a modern Range Rover or XF. Most German cars don't seem to pull it off though, especially the less barge like offerings like an A3 or Z4.

I think it's also influenced by the colour of the materials surrounding the wood, wood can often clash horribly if the interior was obviously designed with brushed aluminium in mind.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

213 months

Monday 8th November 2010
quotequote all
Zod said:
The rest are utterly awful, the S Type and the Aston in particular.
Good we are all different then biggrin Personally I think the worse thing with current Aston's and Range Rover's is the dash. Certainly wouldn't buy either based on how they look inside any longer. Not too sure about the new XJ either. It's ok'ish but certainly a backwards step IMO.

Edited by 300bhp/ton on Monday 8th November 14:52

angusc43

13,272 posts

231 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Hi - IMHO the wood in all recent Merc's, Bimmer's and Audis looks pretty gash.

I had a couple of AMG C43's before my E500 which had (fake) carbon weave instead of wood as standard (thankfully).

Then I started looking at E500's and was shocked at the various colour combo's (carpets, belts and leather) married up with some truly odd-looking "wood". They looked for all the world like something from DFS.

I was happy to eventually find one with black leather/carpet/belts/etc and black wood. Thank God.....

Mastodon2

14,152 posts

188 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Zod said:
See I think this looks crap, like some shoddy old boat. 300bhp/ton posted some absolutely stunning examples of wood put to good use in cars though, they look fantastic!

Dog Star

17,299 posts

191 months

Monday 8th November 2010
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Most cars like mine I see advertised have a brown walnut or whatever colour in it which in an SL IMO looks ste. Mine's got black ash which I have to say looks fab - far more modern.