Bodywork materials –

Plastic

• Plastic is never going to feel as good quality as a metal alternative. It is likely to weigh a lot less and be cheaper and faster to produce and paint, however.
• Used on cheaper cars for external body panels like the bumpers, wings and sills.
• While you might be able to bend the panels with a stiff prod, plastic makes sense as body panel material as it’s light, resilient to impacts and easily replaced if damaged.

Steel

• Steel is strong, easy to work with, cheap and readily available and almost every car will have some steel in it.
• Used for parts such as the roof, chassis, wheels, brakes, exhaust and engine.
• It doesn’t take extremely specialised tools or knowledge to produce, manufacture and repair steel.

Aluminium

• Aluminium is the other common metal used in car manufacture.
• It’s much lighter and stronger than steel and, unlike its ferrous friend, isn’t susceptible to rust.
• It is, however, more expensive and a lot harder to work with than steel so isn’t commonly used on cheaper cars.

Fibreglass

• With advanced metals on the one side and carbon fibre on the other, fibreglass has since fallen out of popularity in the bodywork world.
• As with carbon fibre, it’s made by embedding small strands of glass in a mat and setting it in plastic.
• The combination of glass’ resilience and plastic’s flexibility means fibreglass is very lightweight, fairly strong and resistant to bending.

Carbon

• The fashionable material of choice for the automotive elite.
• Carbon is used in various ways around a car but the most common is as carbon fibre.
• Like fibreglass, it is small strands of carbon embedded into a fibrous mat and sealed by a plastic or resin.

Leather

• Leather upholstery is a desirable option on many a higher-spec car.
• Prepared from the hide of an animal (such as cows) and its resilience to abrasion and staining means it works well as an interior material.

 

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