General Motors has instructed its engineers to make sure the cars they make are as comfortable as possible. And they are going to enormous length to accomplish that goal. Take the new Chevy Malibu for instance; they studied hundreds of bottoms to make comfy seats for it. For the new GMC Acadia the emphasize was on elbows.

The 2013 Acadia is an eight-passenger family car, so comfort is a crucial factor in its success. And it goes deeper than soft suspension and large seats. The engineers have created resting places that considered angles, dimensions and the right materials to achieve maximum comfort. In their quest they came up with 16 places for resting the sensitive elbow bones.

If there were an award for the best armrests in business, the Acadia would have probably won it. Each armrest in this car is designed to serve a different purpose. The driver’s armrest needs to accommodate more controls. The front center armrest needs to both slide and open for storage, and must be level with armrests on the front doors. The four rear outboard armrests are designed with cupholders, which need to be positioned to avoid spills.

This is what GM calls purposeful engineering. It may sound silly at first designing an interior around elbows, but when you use the car for sometime you realize the brilliance of this way of thinking.