Features
Worth the weight?
What we tend to refer to as carbon fibre is usually, in fact, carbon fibre reinforced plastic, or CFRP (or CRP, if you regard carbon fibre as one word, which I don't).
On the face of it, it's a great material. It weighs roughly 1,800kg per cubic metre, which compares well with mild steels at around 7,800kg per cubic metre. Aluminium alloys weigh inat somewhere in the 2,600kg region. So carbon fibre really is very light.
However, no one is driving around with a cubic metre of steel in the car and lamenting its devastating impact on handling. Obviously, a carbon-fibre roof will lower the centre of gravity a bit, but so will having a haircut or removing the loose change from your pocket. It doesn't matter but does make you look a bit of a berk.
If you make the whole bodyshellout of the stuff - Enzo, for example - then it makes a significant difference. The downside, though, is that it's difficult to paint. Worse, once you've had a few, you might inadvertently tell people that your car is made of carbon fibre, and then they'll think you're a big chump.
'I'm reminded of the Eighties' elevation of the word "turbo" to denote excellence in everything'
Because the true worth of carbon fibre has been debased by its use as a sort of phoney high-tech jewellery. It has become a fashionable trim material, and fashion is bollocks.
Carbon-fibre dashboard, carbon-fibre pedals, carbon-fibre instrument faces - none of this is a legitimate engineering application of the stuff, it's just drawing attention to yourself. You can buy stick-on carbon-fibre sheets for motorcycle frames. I don't care how light it is, this must surely be adding unnecessary weight.
There are carbon-fibre pens, carbon-fibre carving-knife handles, carbon-fibre mobile phones, carbon-fibre briefcases. None of this stuff was ever deemed too heavy, was it?
What am I to make of a man with a carbon-fibre briefcase? That he's deeply in touch with the technological zeitgeist? Or that he's suffering from consumption and can't lift a leather one?
I'm reminded of the early Eighties' elevation of the word 'turbo' to denote excellence in everything. The Saab Turbo was a cool car, therefore turbos were; and it was a short step from that to turbo vacuum cleaners, turbo sunglasses and turbo disposable razors.
It's all nonsense. Drink beer. Drive a metal car. Don't be a ponce.
Bookmark with:
What are these?