The most diverse leather interior variants are produced in the upholstery shop. This requires a high degree of skilled craftsmanship, whereby the highest priority is attached to fulfilling customers' individual wishes.

The scope of colours and colour combinations knows no bounds. The range of components to be upholstered varies according to the customers' individual wishes. Switch panels, upholstered ventilation louvres or leather-upholstered switches are just a few examples of the range of components which can be finished in leather.

Leather-working at Porsche begins with the entire hide being placed on a roller conveyor the size of two table tennis tops, where it is digitised and qualified. A camera records the form of the leather and feeds the data into a computer.

The leather is then scrutinised with a magnifying glass. Rough spots, holes or gnat bites are marked directly on the leather by clicking on the corresponding points with a special computer mouse. The computer reads in these leather characteristics and generates a digitised image of the leather.

Unusable areas which do not meet Porsche quality standards are indicated by dots, small circles or marked areas. In this way, a complete digital record of the hide is produced and the hide itself is provided with a bar code to enable subsequent identification.

The so-called nesting process focuses on interaction between man and computer: The production operative selects a certain production order and enters the necessary data in the computer. The computer compares these requirements with the digitised characteristics of the available hides and selects the most suitable hide from the stored stock of hides. The outline of the leather appears on the screen, showing all its specific characteristics. The computer can now begin positioning the templates.

Before actual cutting begins, the outer edges of the leather are marked with a laser to indicate the ideal position of the leather. Cutting itself is carried out using a 3000 bar water jet which precisely cuts all previously defined forms from the leather. For the purposes of comparison: A conventional high-pressure cleaning device operates at around 60 – 120 bar.

Next chapter: Vehicle assembly