Woods used for high end dashboards?

[Dan Masshardt]

Has anybody done research into which auto manufacturers used real burl woods and what types in their dashboards? Do any still use it today?

I'm thinking it was / is thuya or ambonya.

So many cars have plastic burl today - but what about the real thing?

 

[raar25]

All I can say Dan is that when you get in a car with a real wood interior you know it. Amboyna was used at one time, but last time I checked was years back.

 

[MichaelD]

Rolls Royce still uses wood but I think the real answer is this. If you walk into a dealership and the cars have window stickers, the wood grain is plastic. Any of the high end cars will do whatever you want in whatever you want.

My 1976 Triumph has real English straight grain walnut. Today that would be printed paper with a gloss finish.

 

[Akula]

Yes, they still do them. Most are veneers on top of other woods and materials.

 

[maxwell_smart007]

I saw them doing it on How its Made - but that was a Rolls Royce...

I would think that it would be plastic on most cars - and real wood veneer wouldn't like our Canadian climate, so it wouldn't be in any car sold in Canada!

 

[Jim Burr]

RR uses the wood from one tree for the trim on a vehicle, two-three cow hides are used for the leather trim...grain must match. Standards from late last year...wood from one species per car and leather grain must match...Bugatti has a tad higher standards. These are of course at the whim of the buyer.

 

[TonyL]

Not long ago, I watched a documentary on the "construction" of a RR. It was amazing, and you will get your answer from it. It wasn't that old. I am sure you can still find it. It was Roku or Netflix or something like that

 

[MarkD]

My new Lamborghini has a wood dash but I woke up before I could tell what species it was

 

[GaryMGg]

I watched a show where they documented the manufacture of the RR.
IIRC, you can specify what you want.
If it was me, I'd probably want a nice Carpathian Elm Burl.

 

[lyonsacc]

Hey Dan,

Earlier this year I was able to tour a local veneer factory. It was really quite interesting. Amazing show room and hallways - every wall section was a different veneer. They did not allow pictures to be taken. They had one lathe specifically for burls. It was not in operation the day I was there, but it looked like it could hold a 10 to 12 foot tree trunk and then peel of a layer at a time of the burl. They keep everything wet and then dry it once it was cut to a veneer. They even kept their logs wet in a huge storage yard and sprinklers fed by a pond.We did talk about cars a bit and they said they provided whatever was asked for.

Dave

 

[jj9ball]

My 2012 explorer has walnut burl (that is actually plastic). I think most really high end cars like RR use a selection of Amboyna Burl, Redwood burl, thuya burl, and carpathian elm burl. I watched them make a RR on "how its made" and I believe they used Amboyna Burl in that episode.

 

[farmer]

Dash board wood

I owned a logging company in Oregon.
I would also harvest Pacific Madrona burl wood for foreign cars dash boards.

Madrona checks and cracks just as bad if not worse the Snake wood.

Farmer