The BBC have made a “how to build” documentary about it: [ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn1ig-ZZUrw”]How to Build a Supercar “MP4-12C” | Part 1/4 - YouTube[/ame]
They are claiming 4 hours to build the tub. If that includes layup, cure, demolding and trimming that is mighty impressive.
They claim the F1 chassis which was traiditional pre-preg+autoclave, took 4000 man hours to make and cost approx. 500,000 euros. Exaggeration much? And the new chassis costs 2000 euros? Possible I guess, but I wouldn’t me admitting that if I was trying to sell the car for 160,000…
In the layup process, you can see them laying a large ply on top, it looks like it was “pre-molded” into shape to make it easier. You can see two guys carrying away what looks like a white plastic tray the same shape as the ply. Perhaps the ply was vacuum formed into shape? I couldn’t see any evidence of vacuum consolidation during layup.
The appearance of the tub as it comes out of the mold is interesting. There appears to be no excess carbon to be trimmed, just resin. Is this normal with 2 sided pressure molding?
The are a couple of errors in the video (a v8 is made by joining 2 four stroke engines together, pistons are assembled in the head, the engine animation has the valve timing wrong) but overall I think it’s pretty good.