Back in the 1990’s Matthew Figliola stopped working at local car audio shops and opened a restyle store that was about as upscale as you can get.
His shop, Ai Design in Tucahoe, NY (a New York City suburb) has no traditional showroom, and operates by word of mouth.
His car audio/restyle jobs range from $5,000 to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and include full auto conversions. SUVs are turned into limos to shuffle wealthy commuters to Manhattan and back, for example.
“We do specialized work,” said Figliola who has on staff, “ A lot of craftsmen, upholsterers, experts with 12 volt, wood working, metal and plastic work, fiberglass, any type of welding…”
It’s common for a car to be in the shop for 6 to 9 months for an overhaul. Some take over a year, but most take 1-3 weeks.
He explained, “Around 1995-96 an interesting trend started to develop based on taking SUVs—the term SUV didn’t exist then—but Chevrolet Suburbans were being modified by a few key shops. They were luxurized,…had a lot of chrome and shops were selling them at two or three times the value of the car. They had really nice wheels, upgraded performance and suspension and lighting and fancy electronics and leather interiors, but a really sophisticated European look. I was like wow!”
The shop now does two basic types of restyle/conversions. One is on the big SUVs, Cadillacs, Escalades and Suburbans used “as personal transport or to be driven in as a limo,” he said. Some of his clients have chauffeurs. “And they want electronics. It’s a trendy thing among the uber wealthy to have this kind of thing.”
The second type of job at the shop are ultra sports cars like the Porsche 918, La Ferrari, McLaren P1. “Porsches are very common,” he said.
Ai Design adds Wilton wool carpeting (found in Rolls Royce and Bentley), specialized leather upholstery, lighting, wheels and performance. It may change the interior of the car from two seats to a luxury cabin (See photo above).
“One of the first things I got was a leather splitter. Ninety-nine percent of upholstery shops don’t own one. Basically, it’s a shoe maker’s machine that lets you make leather as thin as a piece of paper so I can cover things in leather. It looks like the leather was painted on….With a Porsche, if you get the extended leather package, it includes leather covered vent louvers, leather covered steering column stalks…you need a really highly skilled upholsterer and a leather splitter to do that.”
As for electronics, Ai Design adds a lot of Sierra Wireless modems powerful enough for video streaming. It installs a lot of Apple TVs in the cars. For audio, the shop only works with a few brands such as JL Audio, Alpine and Dynaudio as well Morel and Tru Technology. “But I venture out of 12 volt and use speakers from Pro areas,” said Figliola.
He 3D prints parts including entire gauge clusters and tail lamp bezels.
He said his work is “fabrication oriented and our general look is OEM. We like to make things look like it came with the car.”
Source: CEoutlook
Always a pleasure to visit Matt & his staff at Ai Design. Simply Cutting Edge fabrication & designs. The Best of the Best!!!
This is the best shop I have ever seen. Matt and his staff of journeymen create thing you can’t even imagine. The best restyling shop in the U.S. by far. Since Matt also has a great knowledge of audio, their systems sound spectacular. They never look to see what others shop are doing because they are so far ahead in their thinking.