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 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 supersportscars 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 of their technological demonstrator “Sesto Elemento”, featuring 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.
Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. www.lamborghini.com
Callaway Golf www.callawaygolf.com.