Samson Sky Taps Italian Studio EPTA Design for Switchblade Flying Car Cabin

Samson Sky has handed interior design duties for its Switchblade roadable aircraft to Turin-based EPTA Design, the studio led by founder and head of design Luigi Memola. The American company is in the middle of gearing up for production, and the cabin work covers both the driving and flying configurations of the two-seat vehicle — the dashboard, centre console, seating, trim and finer interior touches.

The brief is an unusual one, because the cockpit has to serve two very different jobs. Layouts must work whether the vehicle is being driven on a road or flown as a fixed-wing aircraft, and they also have to suit both left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive markets.

Samson Sky will hand over the technical requirements for controls and instrumentation while EPTA concentrates on styling and how everything is arranged. A centrepiece of the design is an instrument display built to switch automatically between driving and flight modes, showing only the information that matters for whichever configuration is active.

EPTA Design specialises in automotive and transportation work, including high-performance vehicles and concept development, and Memola brings more than twenty years of experience to the project.

The Switchblade itself is a hybrid-electric roadable aircraft that pairs road travel with fixed-wing flight. The idea is straightforward in concept and complex in execution: drive on public roads to an airport, convert the vehicle into flight configuration, fly to an airport nearer the destination, then switch back to road use.

Its wings and tail tuck inside the body while in driving mode, and Samson Sky says the changeover takes roughly three minutes. The aircraft first flew in November 2023, and the company is targeting regional journeys of around 200 to 500 miles with two occupants and their luggage. It runs on premium automotive petrol.

The interior appointment follows an $80 million investment secured for Samson Sky’s first US production facility, and the company reports close to 3,000 orders from customers across more than 50 countries. No production start date has been given. Certification and the completion of development will ultimately decide when the Switchblade reaches customers, so the cabin work is one piece of a much longer path to market.