Why Car Companies Still Use Clay Models That Cost Up To $650K _ Big Business _ Insider Business

This machine is carving out a life size Ford Mustang from hundreds of pounds of clay .

It's arguably the most important step in designing a car even though most car owners know nothing about the process .

Car companies have used clay models for almost 100 years on nearly every car you see on the road from this Mustang to this $28 million rolls Royce .

I mean , I come across people every single day that do not understand the concept of why we would make a full size car out of clay and then finish it in a way where it looks exactly the same as the production vehicle .

But today companies are straying away from clay .

Modeling is an expensive process that goes up in price based on the company .

And the complexity of the vehicle , exotic hypercar brands like Bugatti have dropped upwards of $650,000 .

Automakers now have high tech virtual reality software that lets them design and examine every inch of their cars .

So why do some companies still use up to 100 tons of clay each year ?

And why do some models take years to build clay models are built in top secret studios that are even more restricted than manufacturing plants .

Inside designers develop vehicles that haven't even been announced yet .

This is the car industry's area 51 .

Yeah , I mean , we work in a secure facility that's only a few members of the site can actually get into .

So it's special permissions to get into here .

Mark Sadler has been a clay modeler for decades and now manages teams for Bentley .

He worked on signature models like the Bente S U V .

The clay comes in bars or cylinders , the size of tennis ball cans .

It's closer to the play dough we played with as kids , traditional water based ceramic clay would dry out and harden too fast .

This specialty clay is more sticky and malleable modeling teams first turn design sketches into multiple scaled down clay models about just over a meter long .

Once they decide on the design , they want to move forward with 3D scanners , convert it into digital graphics .

Those can be edited further with software that can include VR aspects that data is then transferred to a milling machine .

The modeling team first builds a frame out of steel and wood to support foam blocks .

Making a whole model out of solid clay would be too expensive and weigh at least several tons to make the clay more workable .

They heat it for 24 hours in a special oven set to around 140 F modelers spend a couple of days slathering 1 to 4 inches of warm , soft clay on different parts of the model , once it cools to room temperature and stiffens it's ready for shaping .

In just 1 to 2 days .

The milling machine can carve out a full size model .

OK .

Are you ?

But it's not close to being finished yet .

Modelers still have to smooth out surfaces , corners and edges .

This is where craftsmanship becomes critical .

I've met people that have come from the porcelain industry that have , that have migrated very quickly , very easily into the , into the clay modeling side .

But I've also met people that no matter how much training you give them how much guidance , they just don't get it .

They also carve out important details like hoods , roof lines and fenders all by hand .

I mean , you can have at least probably 60 70 tools in your box that do similar things but do it in a slightly different way .

Their tools may look like medieval surgical instruments .

They very , very simple things .

I mean , this , this is quite a crude tool but it's almost like cheese grater .

So you can actually scrape a lot of clay off but keep the surface quite flat and level .

But this strange collection of razor blades and wires has been responsible for some of history's most beautiful cars .

Clay modeling dates back to the 19 thirties .

But the technology has changed drastically .

Now , computer driven machines take hours to do what used to take days or even weeks of manual labor .

Still , the tools used for actual sculpting are mostly the same .

This is a , a very simple tool that we use and it's just you just scrape it like that .

There's the , these , these what we call slicks .

Now what these are , are very thin steel .

But what it allows you to do is is to shape and then you can use that shape to drag down the surface of the clay .

The real advantage of clay is versatility modelers can experiment and make a change that may or may not work but can be easily fixed .

If modelers make a mistake , they use a hot air gun to soften the area and either add more material or remove it .

Yeah , to give the most complete picture of what the vehicle will look like .

3d printers produce headlights , grills , mirrors and more the hard parts or the three dimensional printed parts they develop with the model .

So they will get more and more detailed as they go along and the materials in those parts as well will develop .

So what might be a painted part to begin with will end up being a crystal part .

At the end , the team uses 3D scanners to create a digital version of the model .

That way it can be shared instantly with the company's engineers and designers all over the world .

Near the end of the process , clay models are covered in a glossy film called Dy Knock that resembles painted sheet metal .

It gives modelers an idea of what the actual car will look like .

The film can help identify mistakes in the body work that need to be corrected .

And modelers are no strangers to corrections .

Despite how much faster scanners and milling machines have made this process , it can still take years to finish a clay model .

Over a dozen changes can be made to the model before it's given the green light car designers may continue to adjust details in the body work by just millimeters .

Engineers will make changes to its structure that improve the vehicle's crash test ratings .

When sculpting these different changes , modelers rely on one tool .

Everyone is familiar with tape .

The tape that we use is a scotch tape , black tape so that sticks onto the clay so that when the designers want to change something or we want a more defined guide to help us clean up surfaces , we can put this on and then we can work a surface to it while these simple tweaks can be done by hand .

Major changes require the model to be completely re milled from updated data .

The combination of materials and the amount of labor is what leads to those six figure price tags for automakers Bentley tries sticking to a strict 12 month time frame but it's not the case for everyone .

Designers spent over four years making this Ford F 150 Raptor model out of nearly £2000 of clay , no matter the company , once the modeling team starts going , they're racing against the clock .

The biggest challenge we always have is time .

And especially if I've got the head of the department coming out , the head designer coming out and say , no , I'm not happy with that .

I need to change this , that the wing , the whole body side .

It's trying to balance everybody's wishes and requests and what they actually want to see , you know , and to hit that deadline that we've got to hit .

So what makes these expensive clay models more useful than virtual ones ?

For one automakers can test a car's aerodynamics , computer programs help but they need a real life model to thoroughly test this to do it .

They use a giant wind tunnel as a massive fan spins .

Engineers use a smoke wand to see how easily air will flow over under and around the car on the road .

It's called drag and it helps measure how much energy a vehicle needs to move .

This informs how much fuel the car will eventually consume .

In some extreme cases , companies can spend over 1000 hours in the tunnel testing a model's design before committing to full scale production and modelers are standing by ready to make adjustments on the spot .

But most importantly , models are used to see how a car prototype actually looks , they can see things like how natural light plays on its curves .

Only a real 3D model can show how it will look when it's actually on the road , you're trying to create something that will grab somebody's attention and it will almost get the heartstrings going , get the emotions going .

And sometimes you just can't quite get it there with , with digital or V R , you just can't do it .

So it needs that , that um hands on process , no matter how much more accurate and reliable V R design technology becomes clay modelers like Mark don't see their practice disappearing anytime soon .

You're always going to need a physical model to verify the data that you receive .

I can see the generations coming through now that are more used to using different software , virtual reality .

And there will be more confidence in what they see virtually , it does help the process .

It definitely helps speed up the development of these , these products .

But I think there will ultimately always be a need for a clay model of some form .