MATERIAL STRATEGY AND COMPONENT INTEGRATION FOR OFF HIGHWAY VAN
Project Overview
CMF STRATEGY, DESIGN LANGUAGE, INTERIOR MATERIALS
Scope
The Model Year 2026 refresh had to do three things at once: make the vans look better, make buying easier for customers and the sales team, and give sales people something to sell from instead of guessing. I inherited material palettes with no clear direction, which meant disjointed interiors and heavy composite materials that failed in the field.
Inconsistent palettes were the root problem. Customers and the sales team both struggled to put together a cohesive interior, and production repeatedly ran into untested finishes and heavy materials that didn't hold up. I built a real CMF program to fix both ends: a clear path for design and production, and a reference the sales team could use with customers. So I looked at what OHV already was as a brand, and at what would hold up long-term in durability, features, and aesthetics. I found that OHV had already been shaping an identity, just without a name for it: rugged-luxury. I also chose materials that could be produced reliably at scale, and put better materials where people touch the interior most.
I ran development in parallel across every interior touchpoint. I used palette renderings to establish the rugged-luxury aesthetic and test color and texture combinations across the finish range. I gave seat upholstery a dedicated pattern to carry the language through the vehicle; the full story is covered on its own page. I sourced a custom steering wheel lineup to match our new brand language. A custom cargo tray, developed under the same material strategy, rounded out the parts.
The finished program set one material strategy across every interior touchpoint. Moving to porcelain and solid surfaces let me add new features, including a below-surface cooktop, and lift the overall build quality. Hardware finish, an angle-over-fillet language, and a recurring mountain motif kept that strategy consistent from part to part, even with four people designing largely on their own. Work built in a vacuum still read as one system when it reached the vehicle. I also gave the sales team a real palette and configuration reference to work from, replacing gut checks with something they could point to and explain with authority.
