The Italian carmaker has announced today during the opening day of the Paris autos how a new strategic Lamborghini Callaway Golf partnership. If you don't golf, Callaway Golf Company is one of the world's leading manufacturer in the field. The Lamborghini Callaway Golf partnership will involve what they call "connecting the resources of their Research and Development teams". This basically means they will exchange various research information and data.
The first result of the new Lamborghini Callaway Golf partnership is the introduction of a new revolutionary material, called Forged Composite, which was officially unveiled today. What is it good for? reducing weight of course.
Forged Composite is the lightest, strongest, most precise material ever used by the Italian carmaker. Forged Composite is one-third the density of titanium, which means it's 3 times lighter, yet the carmaker says it has a greater load carrying capacity per unit mass in bending.
Lamborghini Press Release:
Alliance Links R&D Teams of Legendary Italian Automaker and Foremost Golf Equipment Manufacturer,
Forged Composite Introduced as Partnership’s First Collaborative and Groundbreaking Material.
Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. and Callaway Golf Company (NYSE: ELY) have signed an agreement to connect the resources of their world-renowned Research and Development teams. This unique alliance establishes an ongoing collaboration to develop innovative technologies and materials designed to enhance the performance of each company’s products. The partnership, as well as the introduction of a new, co-developed material called Forged Composite, was officially celebrated today at the 2010 Paris Motor Show by
Automobili Lamborghini President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann and George Fellows, President and CEO, Callaway Golf.
Stephan Winkelmann, President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, said: “We see power-to-weight ratio and weight reduction as the keys for future super sports cars and carbon fiber as the material to achieve these goals. Callaway’s expertise in specific technologies is strategic for our research projects and therefore we welcome this partnership as a further, important milestone in
our over 30 years long history of carbon fiber applications.”
“This partnership joins two of the world’s most respected brands,” said George Fellows, President and CEO, Callaway Golf. “Both Callaway and Lamborghini feature rich histories of challenging convention and employing technological innovation to create breakthrough products. This shared dedication has brought our companies together, and will continue to set us apart from our competition.”
Formation of Partnership
The origins of this now formalized relationship date back several years. Through the constant
pursuit of lighter and stronger materials that improve the performance of their products, the Lamborghini and Callaway Research and Development teams cultivated similar areas of expertise. A major point of convergence surrounded the development of advanced composite structures. These highly developed materials, comprised of microscopic carbon fibers, feature superior strength and performance characteristics in comparison to the metal alloys that are generally used throughout the automotive and golf industries.
For Lamborghini, the lighter and stronger composite materials enabled their designers to create important components for their technological demonstrator, “Sesto Elemento”, featuring an unforeseen power-to-weight ratio and acceleration capability. For Callaway, employing carbon composites in place of steel and titanium offered their engineers the ability to design increasingly advanced clubheads with a greater transfer of power upon impact with the ball and more accurate trajectories.
While carbon-based materials have been featured in Lamborghini and Callaway products for several years, making its debut at the 2010 Paris Motor Show is a groundbreaking new material called Forged Composite. Developed in conjunction with both Research and Development teams, Forged Composite is the first collaborative element of the Callaway and Lamborghini alliance.
About Forged Composite
Forged Composite is the lightest, strongest, most precise material ever used by either Lamborghini or Callaway. Encompassing more than 500,000 intertwined turbostratic fibers per square inch, this revolutionary material features an incredibly high threshold for withstanding the extreme forces encountered by Lamborghini and Callaway products. Forged Composite is one-third the density of titanium, yet features a greater load carrying capacity per unit mass in bending. The implementation of a new, proprietary isothermal forging process enables Callaway and Lamborghini engineers to incorporate Forged Composite into their designs with a level of precision that was previously unachievable.
“Forged Composite provides us with the ability to engineer performance enhancements like never before, and we’ve only just begun to tap the potential of this material”, said Dr. Alan Hocknell, Sr. Vice President, Research and Development, Callaway Golf. “We’re looking forward to collaborating on future applications that push our designs beyond any preconceptions.”
“The introduction of the Forged Composite technology allowed Lamborghini to realize the monocoque and the suspension arms of the Sesto Elemento with groundbreaking quality and costs levels” said Maurizio Reggiani, Director Research and Development of Automobili Lamborghini. “Our next challenge is to make this technology a standard for low volume productions.”
Lamborghini unveiled its first design featuring Forged Composite with the Sesto Elemento technology demonstrator making its debut at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. Callaway will introduce a line of premium golf equipment featuring this groundbreaking material in the coming weeks and throughout 2011.
