Just when you thought a Lamborghini couldn’t be more perfect or beautiful, they went and started using carbon fiber on the interior and exterior of certain models, totally out doing themselves. Lamborghini hopes to improve efficiency and power-to-weight ratio of its cars by utilizing the light-weight material. Added bonus? Vehicle emissions could decrease up to 35% within the next six years.
While Lamborghini headquarters is located in the relatively small town of Sant’Agata Bolognese, composite material research is being conducted in Seattle at the University of Washington. Dr. Paolo Feraboli is the director of the school’s Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory. Growing up, Dr. Feraboli worked at Lamborghini and then moved to the United States to earn a doctorates degree.
As years passed, Dr. Feraboli kept in touch with Lamborghini.
“In 2007 they contacted me, saying, ‘We’d like to really invest in carbon fiber technology, make it our key technology and we’d like to partner up with U.W. and Boeing.”
He continued explaining
“that to improve a car’s power-to-weight ratio, you can either increase horsepower or shed weight. But in reality, increasing the power, once you get to a certain level, becomes very difficult, and the kind of gains that you get by having a lot of horsepower becomes very small. On the other hand, if you drop weight you get exactly the opposite. Lamborghini identified that if you want to drop weight, you have to use carbon fiber.”
If it weren’t for the high cost, up to 2/3’s of a Lamborghini could be composed of carbon fiber. Sounds hot!
Back in March at the Geneva auto show, Lamborghini introduced the limited edition Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera, which translates to superlight in Italian. The carbon fiber components of this car were side mirrors, the rear wing and sections of the underbody. And interior parts including door panels, seat shells and the transmission tunnel. The 5.2-liter V-10 of this Gallardo produced 20.5% less emissions than engines previously used by the company.
Our dream is coming true; carbon fiber is on its way to taking over Lamborghinis (and other exotic cars). Are you as excited as we are? Let us know!
[Source: New York Times]