This is How a Car is Painted: 84 Robots and 5,000 Liters of Paint +VIDEO

The journey of a color

• Each colour, since the time it is created until it is applied on a vehicle, goes on a journey that lasts three years

• 84 robots paint the cars and a scanner confirms it has been evenly applied

• Personalization is a major future trend – just look at the SEAT Arona with its 68 possible colour combinations

MARTORELL, Spain - January 23, 2018: Three years of research and enough sensitivity to appreciate market trends: “Creating a colour is an inside job”, says Jordi Font from SEAT’s Color&Trim department. Its journey begins with a market study and ends when the paint is applied on the vehicle. In this process, personalisation strengthens its position as an obvious trend. Continue reading as w ego over the more than 1,000 days it takes to create a new colour range:

- 1,000 litres of paint for a symphony of colours: A specialised team analyses market trends and propose the range of colours of new models to be launched. “In addition to following trends, a lot of intuition also goes into defining a new shade. You have to feel the pulse on the street and run with it”, assures Font. A total of 1,000 litres of paint are required to create a new shade.

- Science behind a Pantone colour guide: Mixtures are carried out in the lab that makes the work of creating a new colour strictly an exercise in chemistry. In the case of the colour palette for the SEAT Arona, “by mixing 50 different pigments and metal particles we’ve created nearly 100 variations of the same colour to see which shade is the most suitable”, says Carol Gómez from the Color&Trim department. “Colours get more sophisticated every day and the demand for customisation is a growing trend”, says Font. An example of this is the new SEAT Arona, which gives customers the opportunity of choosing from among more than 68 different colour combinations.

- From mathematical formulations to real life: Once the colour is defined, it has to be tested on a metal plate to verify its application and the visual effect it produces. “We check the depth and subtlety of the shade on plates that are exposed to sunlight and in the shade to make sure that the applied colour matches the one we designed”, adds Jesús Guzmán from the Color&Trim department.

- A surgery room where 84 robots “operate”: In the booths, cars are painted at a temperature of between 21 and 25 degrees. Two and a half kilos of paint is applied on each car in an automated process performed by 84 robots that takes six hours per vehicle. The paint booths feature a ventilation system that is similar to the ones found in a surgery room to prevent dust and other impurities from the exterior to settle on the freshly painted cars. Seven coats in all, each as thin as a hair width but as hard as a rock, which are baked in an oven at 140 degrees.

- An all-seeing CAT scan: Once painted, all it takes is 43 seconds to verify there are no deficiencies in the paint application. The vehicles pass through a scanner that checks for smooth surfaces and ensures there are no impurities.

SEAT is the only company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets cars in Spain. A member of the Volkswagen Group, the multinational has its headquarters in Martorell (Barcelona), exporting 81% of its vehicles, and is present in over 80 countries through a network of 1,700 dealerships. In 2016, SEAT obtained an operating profit of 143 million euros, the highest in the history of the brand, and achieved worldwide sales of nearly 410,000 vehicles.