"What makes this door so appealing is its design," said Marzio Raveggi, General Manager of Johnson Controls Fiat Business Unit in Italy. "Its surface blends in with the other interior elements, and, what's more, it's made of an environmentally friendly composite material." A special manufacturing process is used to achieve this. The composite is made of equal parts natural wood flour and polypropylene (PP). The advantage of wood flour-filled PP is that it can be covered with similar materials, with no need for additional chemical adhesives. This eliminates the risk of adhesion problems.

Compared to back-injection moulding, the procedure offers a very high level of material protection and also enables edges and contours to be shaped and covered cleanly and precisely. The surface and substrate materials are bonded using pressure and heat only. A further improvement compared to traditional manufacturing processes comes from integrating the map pocket from the back of the door panel. The completed door panel thus gives the impression of a single moulded piece and fits harmoniously within the Alfa 159 interior.

Besides the door panels, Johnson Controls also applies the principle of seamless integration to the HomeLink integrated garage door opener. In this way the new-generation HomeLink is integrated into the sun visor of the Alfa 159. This adaptive universal radio transceiver enables communication between the vehicle and the home environment, allowing the driver convenient control of garage and gate doors or lighting systems. The product is compatible with most remote controls for these systems - including those that rely on the latest 868 MHz frequency band. The great advantage of a garage door opener that's integrated into the car: it's always in the same place and can therefore never be misplaced or lost.