Lamborghini Opens New Composites Lab at the University of Washington

With an eye towards improving its breed of exotic supercars, Automobili Lamborghini is partnering with the University of Washington to underwrite a new Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory on the school's campus in Seattle. The ACSL will be responsible for helping the Italian automaker develop ever greater expertise in working with carbon fiber and other lightweight composite materials that will lead to creating even stronger and lighter vehicles. In making the ACSL announcement, Lamborghini CEO and president Stephan Winkelmann reaffirmed that his company "remains committed to investing in its future, and advancing carbon fiber composite technologies is the key to achieving many our goals. As for the choice of its location and partner, Winkelmann went on to note that "Lamborghini has long been influenced by cutting edge aerospace technology, and that the University of Washington's collaboration with The Boeing Company and the Federal Aviation Administration is the complementary fit to furthering our research and development programs that will continue to set the benchmark in carbon fiber technology."

While the establishment of the ACSL marks the formal acknowledgement of the involvement between the University of Washington and Lamborghini, the two have been working together on various projects for the past two years. According to AACSL director Paolo Feraboli, a UW assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, "Composites are no longer the future, they are the present of structural materials for anything that's high-performance, whether it's aerospace or golf clubs or sports cars. Monolithic materials like aluminum just won't cut it anymore."