If you’ve ever wondered who makes all those sleek custom interiors at Porsche, the company just published a really cool profile about one of the people behind the scenes who is now preparing to retire after 40 years with the company.
His name is Joachim Greiner, and he’s spent the last four decades working on Porsche interiors, including the last 35 years in the Sonderwunsch department. For those unfamiliar, Sonderwunsch is Porsche’s special wishes program that lets customers create highly personalized vehicles with custom colors, materials, stitching, embossing, and other one-off interior details.
Basically, if a customer can dream it up, this is the team that figures out how to make it happen.
Greiner started at Porsche in 1985 in series production upholstery before moving into the Sonderwunsch workshop in 1990. Unlike production work where every process is standardized, Sonderwunsch deals with completely unique requests. Sometimes customers arrive with detailed ideas, and other times they simply describe a feeling they want the interior to capture.
One of Greiner’s early projects involved upholstering a luggage compartment entirely in leather for a 997 Sport Classic. At the time, he said the idea was considered unusual because sports cars were so focused on weight savings. Today, fully trimmed leather luggage compartments have become one of the most popular requests.
The profile also gives a cool glimpse into the workshop itself. Greiner worked alongside five colleagues, surrounded by shelves filled with custom leather luggage compartment trims, many of which reportedly take at least 25 hours of craftsmanship to complete.
As retirement approached, Greiner completed one final special project for one of his earliest customers, Reiner Löslein. The request was for a custom leather bag designed to conceal the red warning triangle mounted inside the luggage compartment. It’s a simple idea, but one that perfectly captures what the Sonderwunsch program is all about.
What makes the story especially interesting for upholstery professionals is how much value Porsche places on craftsmanship and personalization. In an era where so much of the automotive world feels automated and mass produced, there are still some OEM teams carefully hand cutting leather, sewing custom pieces, and building interiors around individual customer requests.
Porsche says demand for customization continues to grow, and the company is expanding its Sonderwunsch program even further with factory one-off models, custom paint development, and highly personalized retrofits for older vehicles.
It’s a great reminder that skilled upholstery work still matters at the very highest levels of the automotive industry.
You can read Porsche’s full profile on Joachim Greiner and the Sonderwunsch program on Porsche’s website.
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