CarZi

Many thanks to my friend Zach over at Exotics And Luxury who just brought these new Carbon Fiber Wheels by 360 Forged to my attention! They definitely look super awesome and probably cost blue label top shelf dollars. After checking out the brochure, I must conclude that these are not TRUE carbon fiber wheels.

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Renault has launched a limited edition of its Mégane R26 sports car with polycarbonate (clear plastic) rear and side windows! Honda currently uses polycarbonate (PC) for the lower portion of the rear window in its Euro version of the Civic and most automakers are currently only using PC on their concept cars.

In North America PC has yet to fully transition the auto market due to its higher than glass cost on a part for part basis. The only NA car which currently employs PC can be found on some models of the Chevy Corvette in their panoramic roof system. However tougher fuel economy standards will have automakers searching for ways to shed pounds of of their upcoming cars and I guarantee you we will see PC windows in the market within the next few years.

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Now you must be asking yourself WTF is with the title of this post? While carbon-fiber is definitely an amazing lightweight and strong choice material for re-engineering many performance parts it is NOT the ideal material for wheels. WHY? Simply because of flex. And in carbon-fiber parts there is little flex due to its material characteristics

Carbon Fiber has the highest specific tensile strength of all the reinforced materials (also called composite materials), and it has a high strength to weight ratio and low coefficient of thermal expansion. The density of carbon fiber is also much lower than the density of steel.

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