Car seat design and aircraft seat design tend to stay in their own lanes. Plane seats are usually built to be as lightweight as possible without compromising air safety, while your car seat tends to be a bit more comfortable and engineered to withstand car crashes. But what if a car design studio designed a plane seat? This is the Stellantis Design Studio and Geven eForma Business Class Recliner seat. It’s a seat that’s designed like a car, and one of its highlights is smaller panel gaps.
I recently got to enjoy a free upgrade to first class on a United Airlines flight. It was my first time ever flying first class on a domestic flight and my second time flying first class, period. Honestly, it was awesome. It blew my mind to get an actual hot meal, a hot towel, and bottomless alcohol on a flight that never left America. The seat was great, too. I felt like I was sitting in a recliner, and I had ample space in all directions. If it weren’t for the cost of plane tickets, I’d never fly economy again.
For how great the whole experience was, it was fascinating to observe how even first-class airline seats can have design gaps, literally. In both of my first-class experiences thus far, I noticed that it’s technically possible to lose my phone in weird gaps and spaces, and some edges were a bit rough when I looked closely enough. But it was fine. The comfy seat, the food, the booze, and the space alone are totally worth it. I suppose I’ve never had this question before, but what would happen if car designers made a plane seat? The Stellantis Design Studio has collaborated with airplane seat maker Geven, and now we have the answer.
Car Designers Penning Other Things
Back in 2021, Stellantis launched the Stellantis Design Studio. According to Car Design News, the studio was born out of the Peugeot Design Lab and is intended to carry out design work and projects across the Stellantis car portfolio, but also outside of Stellantis. The studio isn’t one place, but has branches in Paris, Turin, Shanghai, São Paulo, Casablanca, and Detroit. The head of the Stellantis studio is Klaus Busse, who also oversaw design for Alfa Romeo, Jeep, and Maserati in Europe.
The Peugeot Design Lab was a bit of a skunkworks. It worked on cars, yes, but it also had design collaborations with Airbus Helicopter, Alstom, Bénéteau Groupe, Bombardier, the F.I.A., Gillardeau Oysters, Haier Group, Pleyel, Whirlpool, and Zodiac. The Stellantis Design Studio continues that tradition, and it has resulted in some weird and fun designs. Do you really like Batman? Well, the Stellantis Design Studio and Formitalia designed a furniture set that’s supposed to make you feel like you’re in one of those dark and gritty Batman movies.
The Stellantis Design Studio has also made its mark on the Maserati MSG Racing Formula E team, Peugeot’s new logo and brand identity, Citroën’s new brand identity, a Pecqueur watch, the Strasbourg Tram for Alstom, the Tofinou 9.7 sailboat, a Peugeot bicycle, and more.
The studio has been quite obsessed with aviation, penning the designs of the Airbus Helicopter H160 and the concept of the Auro Aero.
Most recently, the Stellantis Design Studio has gotten into designing aircraft interiors. The studio first teased its concept for a sort of first-class or business-class cabin (below). This one is sort of weird because it envisions an airplane cabin as a social space.
Each seat would have a privacy panel that comes down so you can converse with the passengers around you.
Car-Inspired Plane Interiors
What’s more interesting, I think, are the two interiors that Stellantis designed with actual aircraft interior equipment companies. Both were announced on the same day, and both are on display at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany.
The first collaboration was with Italy’s Geven, a qualified seat supplier for Airbus, ATR, and Boeing commercial aircraft, plus a seat provider for Leonardo defense.
Unlike the above concept cabin, the Stellantis Design Studio and Geven collaboration is an upgrade for an existing product, Geven’s Forma seats. Introduced in 2022, the Forma seats (below) are fairly standard business class seats. Apparently, they’re also used for premium economy class on widebody jets. The seats have a fixed shell and recline inside that shell. It looks nice, like many other modern business class seats.
You’ll find Geven seats in the planes of 25 airlines, including Frontier Airlines first class, Lufthansa Group airlines, Wizz Air, Turkish Airlines, Icelandair, and others.
Stellantis Design Studio says that this new generation of Forma seat is now electrified and features touches carried over from car design. Apparently, the studio’s designers, which include car designers, worked to reduce the seat’s panel gaps, among other things.
Actually, I’m just going to directly quote the press release, because it reads like a marketing copy for a car, and that makes me smile:
Drawing on Stellantis Design Studio’s automotive heritage, the new eForma prioritizes precision and durability through carefully controlled details.
Each enhancement is thoughtfully designed around the user experience while preserving visual purity, ensuring the seat remains both highly functional and elegantly understated. Hidden or minimized shutlines create a cleaner, more refined interaction between body panels and adjacent surfaces, while fewer visual breaks and consistently tight gaps enhance perceived quality throughout.
Also, like a proper car press release, there are a lot of flashy words. Check it out:
Stellantis Design Studio strengthens the design language of Geven’s new eForma, bringing greater clarity and consistency to its overall identity. Unified surfaces, volumes, and interfaces reflect Geven’s Italian elegance, creating a calm, balanced presence and a more coherent silhouette from every angle. The result is improved visual continuity across all components, with design choices deliberately focused on long‑term value rather than unnecessary complexity.
You know what? I like it. Obviously, I haven’t seen it in person, but it looks like something that can be bolted into a plane tomorrow. If the real product is anything like the pictures, the seats could have that little extra attention to detail that I thought the seats in the planes I’ve been in didn’t have.
How much do people care about that? I have no idea. But I admit that I spend quite a lot of time staring at different surfaces inside planes. I also know that I am weird.
Still, I can’t stop giggling at the idea of car designers reducing panel gaps in airplane seats. I hope they had some great fun penning this work. Hey, Stellantis, when are we getting Hellcat plane seats?
One More Stellantis Plane Interior
On the same day that Stellantis announced the new Geven seats, it also announced a new concept aircraft cabin interior with Sogeclair. This latter company is not specifically focused on aircraft interiors, but on industrial engineering. Sogeclair makes a little bit of everything, from driving simulator rigs and train driver simulators to aerospace systems and naval architecture.
This concept interior, called Vista, doesn’t have any car inspiration. Instead, it’s supposed to be a bit of a pod suite with its own private door, walls, and a living room inside. The pod has a full-height wardrobe, a built-in minibar, and lots of nooks and crannies so your carry-on luggage can be tucked away.
Stellantis says that this interior would utilize natural wood finishes and leather, among other surfaces that would be pleasing to the touch. The tech was also minimized where possible for more of a living room touch.
This interior is far more of a futuristic designer dream than the eForma seats above. However, Stellantis and Sogeclair contracted TailWind Airline Consulting to ensure the design would meet certification standards in case an airline wanted to implement this interior. Apparently, this interior was designed to work with existing layouts, and it’s feasible to produce it. But, since it’s a concept, who knows?
Either way, it’s just pretty awesome that a bunch of designers at Stellantis seem to be having fun designing things that aren’t cars. I must admit, I did not have “Stellantis airplane seats” on my Bingo sheet. But I love it. There’s a chance I’ll never fly on a plane with one of these seats, but it’s still neat that at least some of what these folks are designing will exist.
So, the next time you’re flying international, or heck, if you’re one of our lovely readers in Europe, take a gander at your airplane seat. Maybe, one day, you’ll see a Stellantis logo somewhere on it.
Top graphic images: Stellantis; Pentel
It’s good to know Stellantis has solved all of their automotive problems and are now free to branch out into other areas. 😉
To be fair, I’m not familiar with any major complaints about Stellantis seating. So the seats department may in fact have plenty of time to spread around 😀
Yes, but, can they keep laptops from falling into the neither regions of the plane?
Based on the experience I have with stuff falling between the seat and console.. no?
The issue with these designs is the armrests don’t fold up which is quite essential when the row is full and the person at the window wants to exit. Anyone who’s big or tall appreciates the ability to create more room for ingress or exit (especially in an emergency)
It’s a new era for the Auro Aero: an airy aura, more flora, and wifi from Eero!
I would trade any of those seats for a mid 2000s Volvo seat
“Each seat would have a privacy panel that comes down so you can converse with the passengers around you.”
This adds another level of social awkwardness. Now you have to figure out a nice way to say “Conversation over. Bye.” and pull up the panel.
I know, right? I’d pull up the panel the second I get to the seat and never put it down. The render seems to suggest it’s a single panel, though, so maybe the other person will get to push it down?
I think Recaro does a big business in plane seats.
You think correctly.
…Hellcat aircraft seats sound like something that’d go into a WWII Grumman product. Either that or something like a Van’s RV.
…As in the series of planes, not a camper.
If you like United’s domestic first class try their Premium Plus Economy on long haul flights. The seat is similar in size to domestic first but tickets are a lot less than Business.
“Forma seat is now electrified”
So like an electric chair?
“Stellantis airplane seats”
Hmmm…
“The seats have a fixed shell and recline inside that shell. It looks nice, like many other modern business class seats.”
This needs to be more widespread. If you want to recline – fine. Your seat slides forward. Some Asian airlines do this in economy.
Way better than in US domestic economy where the person in front of me reclines back and knocks my coffee into my lap.
And the oblivious speed at which so many people throw their seat into recline. I never recline my seat quite all the way, and I’m always slow in doing it so the person behind me has time to notice and adjust.
And then there’s the screen peckers behind you who don’t somehow realize that the entertainment screen is part of someone’s headrest and that the screen will respond to very gentle touches, so they stab hard at it and you’ve got this bap bap bap bap bap bap bap bap bap transmitting into your skull from the moron playing candy crush or whatever.
Well yeah, isn’t that kind of the point? 😀
Listen here, you! lol
Kidding aside, the real travel hack is having a job that requires international travel and pays for International Business Class. There’s no way I could afford that out of my own pocket, but the bonus miles (which have sizable multipliers when you fly Business) and airline status I earn on those flights give me free domestic first class upgrades and I can use points to get steep discounts on international flights.
Economy Plus is totally fine for any domestic flights, but flying 12+ hours on international business class does really spoil you for those super long flights. I’d be really hard pressed to fly Economy to Asia anymore.
I just want a headrest that is up at the level of my head, and not pushing my shoulders forward, turning me into a crumpled ball of misery
At least on AA, the headrests up front extend, though hardly anyone seems to know this. First thing I do when I sit down. Though on an Airbus recently the thing came off in my hands (not that it was Airbus’ fault, AA uses the same F seats on both fleets other than the older A320s). Oops. I was able to put it back together.
Delta is the same way. You can slide the headrest up quite a bit, which is a lifesaver at my height.
Don’t get me wrong, my lower back is still in agony by the time I reach my destination, but at least my upper back isn’t joining it.
I am pretty sure that even F seats are pretty universally designed by descendants of the Marquis de Sade across the industry with rare exceptions. The big poofy seats AA has in thier hoary old A320s is one of those rare exceptions. They are actually SOFT, not made from leather covered plywood like the rest of them.
I have a Thermarest seat pad that collapses to about the size of a pop can that I usually toss in my carryon just in case I end up in one of the truly awful seats. Of course, that makes the armrests even more useless because it raises me up higher, so it’s not a perfect solution.
Meanwhile Boeing worked with the guy who designed the Ford Ranger jump seats to design their main cabin seats
Airplane manufacturers as a rule do not design or build the seats. Blame the individual airline for poor choices.
Can they do that on the auto-side?
If we’re going to have auto designers do airplane interiors, then they need to go find the guy responsible for the seats in the 1980 Lincoln Continental Town Car and drag him out of the retirement home