Thermoformed Plastic Consoles – designed with the client in mind!

Since Arrowhead’s founding in 1972, we have been designing and molding various thermoformed products for the heavy truck, bus and specialty vehicle industries.   Generally speaking, these industries tend to have a need for a variety of different thermoformed parts, but the volume on each one is much smaller compared to that which you would typically find in the auto industry.  Thus, it isn’t usually feasible to invest in expensive tooling for injection molding as the ROI simply isn’t there due to the lower volume of parts required per year.  Thermoforming is generally the molding process of choice for these types of applications.  Thermoforming allows for easier and less costly design changes as well as less less costly production tooling. Please visit here to learn more about the differences between injection molding and thermoforming and please visit here to learn about a unique tooling solution for thermoforming that Arrowhead offers our customers.

The thermoformed plastic center console shown in the picture is an Arrowhead part that we designed with input from the customer and their customer’s needs in mind.  The customer in this particular application guts much of the interior of vehicles that are sent to them and then adds features and products to make the vehicle more handicap accessible.  The vehicle ends up having quite a few thermoformed parts around the interior that become a decorative cladding to hide the cords, wires and different auxiliary componentry required for the functionality of the newly installed handicap accessible features.

Thermoforming was the ideal way to design, modify, and eventually produce this part in the quickest and most affordable way possible when factoring in the part’s usage per year.  If this part was injection molded, the cost related to the number of prototypes, design changes and eventual production tooling would have made this initial investment multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars and it would have thus been cost prohibitive.  Also, the design of this thermoformed console and the way we chose to manufacture it allows us to easily change the overall height and bottom contour to allow for a variety of different vehicles sizes and types.   This particular console is made from black, low gloss thermoformable ABS plastic with a Seville texture.  The incorporated arm rest is made from Naugahyde that has been vinyl wrapped around an ABS shell.  Two drop down cup holders are available to use for those sitting in the back seat who wish to have a place to store their beverage.  The console measures: 34″ x 11″ x 18″ tall.  Other colors and textures are available if sufficient order qtys are met.

Although we designed this console with a specific customer in mind, this is one of the few parts that Arrowhead owns the rights to the product and thus is able to use the tooling to produce parts for other customers who may be looking for a plastic center console. Arrowhead takes pride and enjoys assisting our customers with the design and manufacture of a thermoformed part that meets their unique set of challenges.  If you can come up with the idea, we can help you find a way to produce it.  Our motto of “molding ideas into reality” isn’t just a catch phrase….it’s what we enjoy doing…and we are good at it!

If you are interested in purchasing this console, or having Arrowhead design and manufacture one that is custom tailored to your unique application, please don’t hesitate to contact us by clicking here.