Thirty-five years ago, McLaren revolutionized both motorsports and the car world at large. Drawing on lessons learned from aerospace, McLaren introduced the first Formula 1 racer with a carbon-fiber-composite (CFC) tub in place of a bonded and riveted sheet-aluminum structure. The success of that venture in turn enabled the aptly named McLaren F1 sports car, which had a molded CFC monocoque serving as its passenger cabin and structural core.
Since then, the technological trickle-down has continued, drip by drip, from aircraft to race cars to supercars, and, recently, to affordable road cars. At this year?s New York auto show, Toyota introduced its Prius Prime plug-in hybrid equipped with a CFC rear hatch, enabling an eight-pound weight saving over the standard stamped and spot-welded steel. The drips reached Italy in 1983, when engineer Rosario Vizzini returned to his homeland convinced that the aircraft-manufacturing techniques he had learned at Boeing could trim mass and improve performance at Lamborghini. A CFC-intensive Countach Evoluzione prototype was constructed, followed in 1985 by the first Kevlar-reinforced body panels for the Countach Quattrovalvole. By 1990?two years before the launch of the McLaren F1?CFC had spread throughout the Lamborghini lineup. The Diablo was the first to mix CFC and steel tubing in a hybrid structural role. Today?s Aventador coupe and convertible have a core structure consisting only of molded CFC.

The collaboration between Lamborghi...