These articles about Audi's sensory design teams, while a bit heavy on the corporate PR, give a great sense of the level of detail that goes into designing a high-end car.

via Jason Fried.

"If you go into a person's house and look at his surroundings, you'll see exactly who he is. If you look at the same person in his car, you'll see who he wants to be"

I love this quote from J Mays, the head of design for Ford. Some other nice design comments in this post from Diego Rodriguez.