CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/532917
JULY 2015 32 CompositesWorld INSIDE MANUFACTURING Glass-reinforced plastic artfully captures classic curves, crash-protects passengers and stunningly packages its maker's high-performance but highly fuel-efficient diesel powertrain. » His customers, said Henry Ford, Sr., could buy a car in any color, as long as it was black. Attributed to the founder of Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, MI, US), this famous quote signaled the end of an era in which nearly everything, even the automobile, was handmade, and thus, could be custom made to order. Ford understood that the secret of mass-producing goods at low cost was to make them all the same, or to greatly reduce choice. Today, when nearly everything purchased in the developed world is mass-produced, there is a powerful longing for that which is personally custom-crafted. Sensing that "old school" undercurrent, startup automaker Trident Sports Cars Ltd. (Swafham, Norfolk, UK) is using fber-reinforced plastic (FRP) and a skilled workforce to create bespoke luxury sports cars that showcase a unique transmission technology and multi-fuel engines that can satisfy the very modern imperative to render vehicles carbon neutral in operation. Marketing massive torque Trident's Phil Bevan and partner Dan Monaghan have spent much of their careers working in automotive R&D.; But when they opened the doors at Trident in 2005, it wasn't to develop cars per se, but instead to commercialize their proprietary torque-multiplication technology, the result of a project into which they had sunk ₤6 million (US$9.3 million) of their own money. Te vision? Build a business that would manufacture many products — cars, yes, but also commercial trucks, military vehicles, powerboats and even wind turbines — that could incorporate and beneft from that unique technology. What is torque-multiplication technology? As the name implies, it is a combination of hardware and software algorithms that multiply the torque produced, for example, by an internal combustion engine of a given horsepower rating, enabling it to deliver expected performance at much lower-than-typical engine By Peggy Malnati / Contributing Writer Supercar looks/commuter car economy This composite-bodied, two-seater touring vehicle, built by Trident Sports Cars Ltd., a startup automaker in the Norfolk area of England, ofers several models with performance approaching that of supercars but the fuel economy of hybrid-electric vehicles or diesel-powered micro-city cars. Key to this performance is the company's core product: its patented torque-multiplication technology (see the Side Story on p. 36). Source | Trident Sports Cars Ltd. Bespoke sports cars' composite body speaks volumes