Marketing cars has become somewhat of an art form in recent years. Fast disappearing are the dusty yards stacked with rows of autos, and in come bespoke business showcases as car companies get more and more clever at attracting new costumers.

Ebbetts Waikato have taken this to a whole new level by opening a chic café designed by another Hamilton icon — Chow Hill — right inside their showrooms in East Hamilton.

Wedged in the spacious atrium between the Audi and Volkswagen showrooms, Osten (which is German for East), caters to the upper middle class professionals who are prime candidates for a new RS or GTI.

Like all things Teutonic, the minimalist design is crisp and functional, right down to the grand entrance. The large glass sliding doors open onto a large patio, and can be retracted to allow for al fresco dining or the occasional egress of autos (should that be required). To keep the insides clean, without distracting from the design, interior designers Material Creative turned to Advance Flooring for help.

The solution lay in the robust ExtraTread Entrance Matting System utilising extra-wide intense wear polyamide infills in a stylish aluminium frame. The sleek low profile system is highly slip resistant, moisture absorbent, and traps dirt on specially designed corrugated rails.

The low profile enhanced both attractiveness and strength, and was fabricated to exact size in Advance's Auckland factory. Installation was completed in a matter of hours, and (incidentally) a matter of hours from opening (allowing for all the equipment to be removed and the floors cleaned prior to installation).

ExtraTread is manufactured and installed by Advance Flooring, NZ's leading supplier of innovative commercial flooring and entrance matting systems in Australia and the Pacific.