Car Bumper Manufacturing: Chrome to ABB Robots

Car bumper manufacturing today has little in common with how bumpers were first made. Early bumpers were bolt on steel bars, and the chrome bumpers of the 1950s were heavy plated steel. A modern bumper is mostly a painted plastic cover over a hidden reinforcement bar, and it often carries sensors, lamps and grilles. This post covers how bumpers were made before robots, how US safety rules in the 1970s pushed carmakers toward plastic, how plants now mould, treat and paint bumpers with robots, where ABB robots fit, and what is still difficult.

A painted Peugeot 3008 front bumper module on the Plastic Omnium stand at the 2018 Paris Motor Show. Photo: Matti Blume / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From steel bars to the 5 mph bumper

The first bumper appeared on a vehicle in 1897, fitted by the Austrian carmaker Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau. Early bumpers were plain rigid metal bars, and owners often fitted them themselves by swapping the front spring bolts for longer ones that could hold a bar. Carmakers began adding bumpers in the mid 1910s, usually a strip of steel across the front and back sold as an optional accessory. Bumpers were common by the 1920s, and by the 1950s the chrome plated ones had grown heavy, elaborate and more and more decorative.

The 1946 Holden 48-215 prototype with chrome plated bumper bars and grille, National Museum of Australia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 AU)

In the 1960s bumpers slimmed down into lighter, blade shaped chrome bars with a painted metal valance below them, and plastic soon followed. On the 1968 Pontiac GTO, General Motors fitted an "Endura" body coloured plastic front bumper designed to take a low speed knock without permanent damage, and a TV advert showed John DeLorean hitting it with a sledgehammer. The 1970 to 1971 Plymouth Barracuda offered similar elastomeric bumpers front and rear, and in 1971 Renault put a plastic bumper made of sheet moulding compound on the Renault 5.

A restored 1968 Pontiac GTO with its body coloured Endura plastic front bumper. Photo: Automotive traveler / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

For the next decade regulation set the shape of bumpers in the US. In 1971 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 215, which took effect on 1 September 1972. Safety parts such as headlamps had to survive barrier tests at 5 mph at the front and 2.5 mph at the rear. The rules set the performance a bumper had to reach and left the design to each carmaker. While the 5 mph rule was in force, from 1973 to 1982, many US cars carried bulky, protruding bumpers with flexible filler panels hiding the gaps, which gave them a blocky look.

The 5 mph front bumper of a 1974 AMC Matador, with an elastic Kraton fascia below the grille. Photo: CZmarlin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How plants build bumpers today

A new plant in India gives a good picture of current practice. On 24 September 2026 Automotive World reported that Toyoda Gosei will invest INR5.76bn (US$65m) in its eighth Indian plant, in the Bidkin Industrial Area of Maharashtra, with production starting in the first half of 2029. It will make bumpers, instrument panels and airbags among other parts, and employ about 570 people by 2030. Planned equipment includes a bumper paint booth, large electric injection moulding machines with automatic mould changes, automated guided vehicles and low cost automation from Thailand that pairs collaborative robots with karakuri mechanisms.

An ABB IRB 4400 unloads parts from an ENGEL injection moulding machine in a Spanish plant. Photo: ABB

A bumper cover starts in a large injection moulding machine, where a robot usually lifts the moulded part out and passes it on, the job covered in our post on injection moulding cells. The plastic then needs a surface treatment so paint will stick, before primer, colour and clear coat go on. ABB's IRB 5500 has done this kind of painting for years. Eureka Magazine reported that Aston Martin would use four wall mounted IRB 5500 robots with ABB's RB1000 electrostatic bell atomiser to paint both chassis parts and bumpers.

ABB paint robots working on a car body inside a paint booth. Photo: ABB

ABB's smaller IRB 5510 paint robot is aimed at painting small workpieces and at flame treatment, the step that prepares a plastic surface for paint. After painting, bumpers are trimmed, fitted with brackets, grilles and sensor holders, and checked. A large arm such as the IRB 6700 can carry a complete bumper, and a GoFa CRB 15000 cobot could help a person fit clips and sensors. Paint paths and cell layouts are normally tried first in RobotStudio, and our post on paint robots covers ABB painting more widely.

An ABB IRB 5500 paint robot, built to work in the explosive air of a paint booth. Photo: ABB

Where bumper making goes next

Bumpers keep collecting electronics. Parking sensors, radar units and cameras now sit behind or in the cover, so holes have to be in exactly the right place and the paint has to be even where a radar looks through it. That suits robots for punching or drilling sensor holes and fitting brackets, with cameras checking each part. Plants also want to switch colours and models quickly, which helps explain why Toyoda Gosei lists automatic mould changes and IoT based production control for its new Indian site.

ABB robots working on a car body in final assembly, where bumpers, lamps and sensors are fitted. Photo: ABB

Drivers notice the change in repair bills and garage work. A cracked plastic bumper used to be a cosmetic problem. With sensors behind it, moving or replacing the cover can affect driver assistance systems, the subject of a 16 September 2026 Brake & Front End article titled "You Moved the Bumper; Did You Move the Radar?". After even a small knock in a car park, a repair can now mean refinishing a factory painted cover and then checking that the sensors behind it still point the right way.

A front parking sensor set into the painted bumper of a VW Golf VII. Photo: Basotxerri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Several problems remain open. Paint shops are expensive and use a lot of energy, so a new bumper paint line is a big investment for a supplier, and the robots only pay off with steady volumes. Flame treatment puts gas burners in a plant that also handles flammable paint, so the cells need careful safety design. Old bumpers are hard to recycle because they mix plastics and paint. Plants in new locations, like Toyoda Gosei's in India, also have to train people to program and maintain the robots they install.

A broken plastic front bumper hanging loose after a collision. Photo: Santeri Viinamäki / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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