Scout Motors' Aileen Barraza on the power of CMF

 I never set out to be a car designer. At CCS in Detroit I studied industrial design with a furniture minor and swore I’d never go into the car industry as I thought it would ruin my love of cars. Then Ford called me before graduation and asked me to come talk to their colour and materials team. I thought I’d just try it out, not stay long. That was 25 years ago. 

People still think colour, materials and finish – CMF – is just decoration. It’s not. It’s the first thing customers see and feel. From across the lot it’s the colour that grabs you. When you open the door it’s the texture, the stitch, the warmth. If we’ve done it right you don’t even know why you love it, you just know you have to have it. That’s CMF. 

My first project at Ford was the Police Interceptor. Not glamorous, but it taught me to listen. Those cars are tools. Officers get in and out hundreds of times a day, spill coffee, scuff the seat bolsters with their holsters. You have to design materials that can take that beating and still look decent. Then I moved on to the Sport Trac, Explorer – and the 2008 crisis – when half the studio was gone and the younger ones were left to ship a major programme. Brutal, but it made me learn fast. 

Later I ended up on the F-150 and that was a whole new ball game. Same geometry across 13 to 17 series, and the only thing that separates a work truck from a six-figure luxury model is CMF. I pushed for real wood and real leather when people thought I was nuts. But customers wanted it. They were walking into dealerships, ticking every box and suddenly the marketing team was telling me, “we need you to break $100,000.” That’s when I really learned the business side of materials. 

After 15 years I thought I’d done what I came to do at Ford but then got a call to join Rivian after its LA reveal in 20?CHK?. When I joined Rivian the CMF team was literally one person. No suppliers, no processes. Just two beautiful concepts and a deadline. But the ethos there stuck with me. Rivian taught me to share. Before that everything felt secret, you had to be first to market. At Rivian it was like, if we’ve got a sustainable vinyl that’s better, why wouldn’t we want everyone to use it?

After almost five years at Rivian, I wanted to move back to Michigan so my girls could grow up near family. That’s how Scout came along. Honestly, it started with one of those random LinkedIn messages. It felt like the right time and the right challenge. 

At Scout, head of design [CHK exact] Chris Benjamin set the overall form language but gave me free rein on CMF. That’s a dream. We didn’t want safe grey interiors. We wanted warmth and contrast. On the show cars we did fabric uppers with leather lowers, we played with cool and warm tones, we used antique tan leathers. One of my favourite details is what we call Earth’s plaid. Flying back and forth to California you look down at the fields, all those crops in different directions. It makes this natural grid pattern. We turned that into a design element that nods to Scout’s roots without being retro. 

The timeline was insane. I had maybe seven months to set the CMF direction and less than a year to reveal vehicles. We had to build a team at the same time. Now we’re six people. I lead with servant leadership — I’m not the type to tell people to stay late and then go home. I’m right there in the trenches. Respect goes a long way. 

And we work differently here. Exterior, interior and CMF are equals. We don’t do separate reviews. We sit in one room for hours and hash it out together. I call it the design trifecta. At Ford I always fought to sit in the studio next to the clay modelling guys because that’s where the real conversations happen. CMF can’t just come in at the end to decorate. We have to be part of the design from the start. 

The hardest part is always cost. If you start with numbers you kill creativity. I start with the ‘wow’ moment – what do I want the customer to feel when they open the door? Then we work back into cost. That might mean changing a backing material, sharing tools, shortening a part that no one sees. But I won’t compromise on what the customer touches. 

Looking back, every step has been about making the right call for the customer. Police officers who needed stain-resistant fabrics. Truck buyers who wanted luxury. Rivian owners who cared about sustainability. Scout customers who want expression. It’s always about listening, then solving. 

I never meant to go into automotive. But I stayed because CMF is where design meets emotion. A stitch isn’t just a stitch. It’s that sigh when someone opens the door and falls in love without knowing why.