Carbon fiber is a composite material most often found in race cars and expensive supercars although like all advanced technology it is finding its way into more and more vehicles. Despite it’s expense and high-tech uses carbon fibre is relatively easy to work with.
The expense of carbon fibre is offset by it’s amazing strength and extreme lightweight properties. It is also extremely stiff and body stiffness plays an important part in contributing to good handling, especially at high speeds.
Some production supercars use a carbon fibre monocoque, a construction technique that uses the external skin to provide support rather than the conventional internal frame. Other times the carbon fibre is used in the bodypanels or in areas where extreme stiffness and lightweight is beneficial.
Carbon fibre is sometimes used in conjunction with fibreglass because of their similar manufacturing processes, an example of this would be the Corvette ZO6 where the front end is carbon fibre and the rear is fibreglass.
Carbon fiber is however, far stronger and lighter than fiberglass.
Carbon fibre can be found in a wide range of performance vehicles including sports cars, superbikes, pedal bikes (where they are used to make frames), powerboats and it is often used in the tuning and customising industry where attractive woven panels are left unpainted to ’show off’ the material.