Europe
leading pigment producers also have the
resources to employ design teams whose
members track color trends across the
world. This gives an extra dimension to
their expertise in colors which can help
gain contracts for bespoke work.
AkzoNobel has, for example, been
forging close ties with the UK-based
McLaren Technology Group which is famous for its Formula 1 racing car team
and which five years ago diversified into
the development and manufacture of high
tech sports cars.
Last year (2015) both McLaren
Automotive, the sports car business, and
McLaren Racing, extended their partnerships in coatings with Akzo Nobel.
In addition to the freedom to choose
their own colors and special effects, buyers of McLaren cars are offered a wide
range of personalization options including special aerodynamics, lightweight
components, interior upgrades and
changes to materials and even bodywork.
The greater the degree of personalization the higher the potential value of the
vehicle in the resale market, in which the
prices of some McLaren cars have reached
over £1 million ($1.5 million). The cost
of the bespoke coatings work can exceed
£60,000, depending on its complexity.
“We are at present working on a request from a diamond mines owner for
a special effects coatings comprising
particles of diamonds,” James Banks,
McLaren’s head of bespoke cars said during a press tour, organized by AkzoNobel,
of the car company’s technology and production center at Woking, near London.
All the McLaren Automotive cars,
whose production rate is due to be raised
this year from 14 to 20 per day, are hand
painted without the use of robots. On
average one car takes 32 minutes to
paint whereas in a large-scale OEM
robot-operated paint shop the average
could be as low as 43 seconds. “Our cars
are built by craftsmen not robots,” said
Alan Foster, McLaren Automotive’s op-
erations manager.
AkzoNobel believes that its big competitive advantage with contracts like
that with McLaren is its expertise in
transportation coatings and its know-how in color matching technology, This
enables it to produce over one million different shades of the 250,000 different car
colors in existence.
“This range enables us to meet the exacting needs of companies like McLaren
— and the precise color requirements
of their customers,” said Matt Pullen,
AkzoNobel’s UK country director.
Around 30 miles south of Woking
at Goodwood, Rolls-Royce cars are
manufactured with BASF Coatings,
also with a large global refinishing
business, supplying the coatings and
dealing with the many requests for bespoke colors and special effects. One
of the exclusive paints developed by
BASF for the renowned luxury carmak-er, owned by BMW Group of Germany
since 1998, has been a coating containing real gold dust.
BASF’s Glasurit refinishing operation
is also an international leader in supplies
of coatings for the fast-growing market
for classic cars. These are usually categorized as vehicles made after World War II
but sometimes also including those manufactured in the 1920s and 1930s.
The company does not recreate the
original paints on the cars, because due
to recent safety rules on chemical ingre-
dients their supply would be illegal.
Instead it uses a large database on car
coatings covering many decades to match
the colors and their shades exactly. Some
colors with the same name can vary in
appearance between cars of different
manufacturers or models.
“Our objectives for classic cars are
not only to provide consultancy and sup-
port services but also to show our color
competency,” said a spokesman for BASF
Coatings at its headquarters in Muenster,
Germany. “We are able to find the exact
color shade of the classic car which may
have been exposed to the sun for many
years. While old paints may fade after so
many years, we have to match the current
state of the shade. With our huge data-
base of classic car colors, we can also find
out the original color the model was once
painted with.”
Unlike BASF, AkzoNobel is not in-
volved in coatings for the OEM mass
market, instead concentrating on coat-
ings for premium cars and the refinish-
ing sector.
However it is able to benefit from synergies between the high-end car market,
particularly the bespoke segment, and its
activities in other performance coatings
sectors, like consumer electronics, smart
phones, IT and aerospace.
Some of these markets have a thirst
for a constant stream of design ideas,
particularly in consumer electronics
where new colors and special effects
can go out of fashion within a matter
of months.
“To keep up with these fast-mov-
ing sectors we look to areas like be-
spoke coatings for premium cars for
ideas,” explained Stephie Sijssens,
AkzoNobel’s performance coatings de-
sign manager. “We might, for example,
be able to change the appearance of
the diamonds special effect requested
for the McLaren car into a design
which looks like diamonds without
containing them.”
Bespoke coatings can offer opportuni-
ties for developing skills in the balancing
of creativity with technological expertise,
which can be broadened out into much
bigger markets. CW
“Bespoke coatings can offer opportunities
for developing skills in the balancing of
creativity with technological expertise,
which can be broadened out into much
bigger markets .”
