Volvo, Lincoln, Genesis take distinct paths to stylish interiors

DETROIT -- With new flagship sedans, Genesis, Lincoln and Volvo are offering consumers alternate definitions of luxury to the overwhelmingly dominant German brands and Lexus.

While the exteriors of the Genesis G90, Lincoln Continental and Volvo S90 have garnered plenty of oohs and aahs, designers are making their most powerful statements inside the cabins.

Designers say the three cars, with their well-appointed and high-tech interiors, seek to pay homage to the countries they come from: Korea for the Genesis, Sweden for the Volvo and America for the Lincoln. Inside the cars, the emphasis is on pampering over performance.

"We want to celebrate whatever we can with regards to where the company comes from, and that is Korea, what we might call the K factor," said Christopher Chapman, chief designer of Hyundai Design North America, speaking of the G90, the flagship for Hyundai's new luxury brand. "We're on this journey now of identifying what great things Korean culture has to offer that we can infuse into the car."

The rear seat of the G90 features a business-class-style seat designed specifically to make a Korean tycoon feel a sense of serenity in a crowded urban environment. The G90 interior is dominated by strong horizontal lines designed to create a feeling of calm.

This car is for a Korean chairman of the board, says Andrew Moir, interior design manager for Hyundai Design North America. "He wants to be very comfortable in back." It doesn't hurt that customers in China are big on rear-seat amenities also.

The Volvo S90 comes with a shifter knob made of Swedish crystal "that is really all about showing off Sweden's heritage in glass-making and crystal," said Tisha Johnson, a Volvo senior director of design. An elegant, architectural, metallic spline runs the full length of the dash and frames a vertical, tablet-size infotainment screen, designed to evoke clean Scandinavian themes.

And the Lincoln Continental will be offered in a Black Label trim model called Rhapsody, in hom-age to the great American composer George Gershwin, who wrote Rhapsody in Blue. The seats, steering wheel and interior trim panels are swathed in blue leather.

"We got inspired by George Gershwin. He did a very good composition combining jazz and classical together," said Soo Kang, Lincoln's interior design chief. The Continental features a 30-way customizable seat.

Anne Asensio, vice president of design experience at Dassault Systemes in Paris and former executive director of advance design at General Motors, says interior design is of paramount importance in luxury these days.

"You need to bring the interior into the same level of the exterior. Volvo is considering the interior equal or beyond the exterior.

"The guidelines are being defined by the Germans," she said. To get on the same level "is a big step, and it takes a long time."

Asensio felt the Volvo came closest to offering a coherent alternative to the Germans, saying, "It's a very quiet, very refined, very controlled design. It is so straightforward. It is really, really Volvo."

Stewart Reed, chairman of the Department of Transportation Design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., says that with warp-speed change in technology and the rapid evolution of materials, interiors are changing more rapidly than any other area of the car. That's why interiors are no longer considered the "B team" by design students at schools such as Art Center College, Reed says.

"It's just absolutely wonderful what is possible now," he said. "There's no more complex or challenging part of a car than the interior."

• Lead interior designer: Robin Page
• On sale: Late 2016
• Notable features: Swedish crystal shifter knob; vertical blade air vents; Sensus Connect infotainment system in tablet-size vertical screen that eliminates many buttons and corresponding clutter

• Cool little details: Sleek center console with sliding wooden panels for flexibility
• Sound system: Bowers & Wilkins
• What’s significant: After years languishing in near-luxury territory, Volvo, under the ownership of China’s Geely, is swinging for the fences with the S90.
• What Volvo says: “The interior masters the art of blending innovative technology and natural materials into an elegant, welcoming and tasteful ambience, Swedishness at its best.” — Thomas Ingenlath, senior vice president, design, Volvo Car Group
• What others say: “There’s sort of a peacefulness about [the Volvo interior]. There’s no lack of elegance, but it’s not throwing every new material and trick and finish and metals and carbon fiber at you. There are cars that have so much going on, it’s just overload. [The S90] is like being in a crowded urban area and you come across a little garden, a park, and there’s a psychological sigh of relief.” — Stewart Reed, Art Center College of Design

• Lead interior designer: Soo Kang
• On sale: Fall 2016
• Notable features: Available 30-way customizable power seat that has, among many other things, individual thigh extenders for each leg

• Cool little details: Speakers with machined, sunburst-design metal covers
• Sound system: Revel
• What’s significant: Critics have long called for Lincoln to bring back a flagship sedan. Lincoln finally answered. But with sedan sales in decline, will customers bite?
• What Lincoln says: “If you picture the other cars in our range, they’ve been designed around a symmetric cockpit theme. We’re breaking that cockpit theme up now. It signals a little bit where we’re going to be going.” — David Woodhouse, Lincoln design director
• What others say: “Frankly, in the few minutes we had to spend with this uber-throne, all that adjustment ability was moderately overwhelming. We suspect that the luxury buyers who love themselves enough to splurge on 30-way adjustable seats (and the opulent sedan they’ll be mounted in) will have no problem spending some quality me-time figuring out exactly what their derrieres deserve.” — Car and Driver

• Lead interior designer: Hyundai’s European design team
• On sale: Summer 2016
• Notable features: Occupants can choose from seven lighting mood lamps; 14-way adjustable rear seat; leather chosen by Hyundai in cooperation with Italian leather maker Concerio Pasubio S.p.A.

• Cool little details: Seats certified by German back specialists; hollow wheels make interior quiet.
• Sound system: Lexicon
• What’s significant: Genesis is Hyundai’s new line of luxury vehicles built on rear-wheel-drive platforms to aim squarely at the dominant German brands. Critics long have said General Motors and Ford should do the same with Cadillac and Lincoln. Unburdened by legacy, Hyundai just did it.
• What Genesis says: “It’s a really exciting opportunity to create something brand new from scratch. We don’t have 100 years of history to fall back on, but it can also be a weight. We have the opportunity to think about what’s right for these cars.” — Andrew Moir, interior design manager, Hyundai Design North America
• What others say: “Unlike Lincoln and Volvo, [Genesis doesn’t] have a luxury car history they’re building on. The G90 has the most limousinelike rear seating experience. No way the second row is the cheap seats.” — Stewart Reed, Art Center College of Design