Mercedes’ GT4 race cars will use eco bumpers in place of carbon fibre

It would seem that GT4 racing cars are about to go eco. But hang on a second, because this isn’t another news story about a race series going hybrid… 

Nope, what we have here is the Mercedes-AMG GT4, which has now ditched carbon fibre bumpers in favour of a natural fibre composite made from flax. Mmmm, sounds tasty.

HWA – the engineering firm responsible for building and supplying all of AMG’s GT3 and GT4 cars to customer teams – has collaborated with Swiss lightweighting company Bcomp on the project, and production of the old carbon bumpers has now stopped altogether. Ordered an AMG GT4 racer recently? You'll be getting eco bumpers when it finally arrives.

Apparently these new natural fibre parts enable an 85 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions when measured cradle-to-gate against an equivalent carbon part. They also won’t shatter in an accident like carbon does, so the risk of resulting punctures is reduced too. Oh, and Bcomp and HWA say that they also offer ‘equivalent mechanical performance in stiffness and weight’. 

Sounds impressive right? How long before they make an entire car out of the stuff?

TEXT Greg Potts