High Life. Your car can be a super-model

Ever wondered how the fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into a chariot worthy of Cinderella? You are probably not acquainted with DC Design founded by Dilip Chhabria, which transforms your humble SUV (and not-so-humble Merc) into a ride fit for royalty. The automobile style guru blends aesthetics with engineering knowhow, to give the ordinary assembly line SUV a complete makeover, so that you can have not just ultimate comfort, but also exclusivity.

When it comes to a luxury car, brute performance and exterior styling are not the only things that matter. Comfy interiors matter too. If money is no constraint, then why not give your car a total makeover? That’s what DC has done for two decades.

Most wealthy clients do not seek a makeover for their cars to make it stand out. So before we conjure up a vision of car seats upholstered in red velvet and diamond encrusted gear shifts, Chhabria wants to set the record straight. “It is not all about vanity. The bulk of our customers come to us looking for solutions and comfort which the original car is not able to give them,” he says. “We don’t want to promote anything just for the sake of looks or exclusivity. We don’t think any business model can sustain based on just that.”

But while customers may come to him because they want the comfort of their favourite armchair in their SUV, they also want privacy and exclusivity. “It starts with basic comfort, but then they want their own private space, akin to a private jet,” he says. Most people are also looking for interiors with an artistic touch. “While you can have all the paraphernalia without aesthetics, that is not acceptable to the affluent,” he adds. And this is where DC’s arty designs, which combine high-end features with comfort and luxury, come in.

So, how much of a makeover can your car undergo? Well, practically all of the interiors can be redone. You can enhance the décor with expensive materials and textures. You can also enhance the functionality of your car by adding state-of-the-art entertainment and other new-age technology and electronics to recreate, say, your study at home.

“Every surface on the interior can be redone. We use leather, wood, glass, carpets and in some cases aluminium. So the surfaces, textures and materials, all are changed,” says Chhabria. But they refrain from structural changes, because ‘‘we do not want to disturb the integrity of the car platform.’’

But makeovers can still transform the space within a vehicle, beyond recognition. By knocking off a few seats in an SUV, Chhabria for instance, can create a private jet like ambience. “The car may originally have seven seats, but we reduce it to four. We then separate their rear salon from the front driving compartment and create a whole rear space, like a private office. Once we are done, you will never be able to tell what the original vehicle was,” he says confidently.

We take a peek into some of his recent ‘works’. The red and white Napa leather interiors of a DC Hummer H2, with door-to-door carpeting, mood lighting and satellite powered ‘in flight’ entertainment system, reminds you of either Air Force One (the Hollywood version) or a really snazzy home theatre. Apart from two wide captain seats with a power reclining mechanism, the cabin features an aircraft style roof module with diffused, swivel-mounted reading lights.

The price? A cool ₹45 lakh. A Hummer H2 vehicle in India costs anywhere between ₹60 lakh and ₹1 crore. So, the makeover can cost as much as three-fourths of the original cost of the car. “Sometimes customers are willing to spend as much as the cost of the car itself, as long as it is aesthetically phenomenal and creates a wow factor,” says DC.

Take the case of the DC Mercedes Sprinter. The total makeover costs ₹85 lakh. The interiors include a privacy partition with an audio video console.

“Many affluent customers do not want the driver to hear private conversations,” says Chhabria. A re-circulating chemical toilet cubicle, powered bar cabinet, mood lighting, remote touch-screen to control all the electronics — these are just some of the gizmos that can be packed into a car. It is mostly SUVs and MUVs that are offered for a makeover because they lend themselves to privacy, comfort and entertainment.

Even among the affluent, there are those who are budget conscious, says DC, who categorises his clients into three broad classes. “The first set of customers would not want to spend more than ₹30 lakh, including the cost of the car and the interiors. These customers go in for a makeover of their Innova, Mahindra XUV or Nissan Evalia.” Others willing to stretch their budget to about ₹45 lakh, would go for a Toyota Fortuner or Ssangyong Mahindra Rexton.

Then, of course, there is a class of customers who are willing to spend any sum for comfort and luxury. “Quite a sizeable few have a budget of a crore or so. This usually entails vehicles like an Audi Q7 or Mercedes GL, adds Chhabria.

But no matter what the budget, customers are clearly looking for interiors that are an amalgam of class and performance. Aside from the décor, the affluent are also looking at up-to-the-minute technology in their luxury vehicles. In-car infotainment and entertainment systems can add a dash of adventure to an otherwise dull ride through the clogged city roads.