BURGEONING Australian wheel-maker Carbon Revolution has made a major breakthrough in the high-performance market by winning a deal to supply optional wheels for the recently revealed Ferrari 488 Pista.

The new contract was announced the Geneva motor show last week, where Ferrari held the global premiere of the 488 Pista – a hardcore, track-focused 530kW/770Nm twin-turbo V8 supermodel that carries a $645,000 driveaway pricetag and is already sold out in Australia ahead of its arrival later this year.

It is the company’s first European contract and will effectively apply a supercar seal of approval to the company’s carbon-fibre wheels on that side of the Atlantic.

Speaking at the unveiling in Geneva, Carbon Revolution chief executive Jake Dingle said the optional wheels for the 488 Pista would be 40 per cent lighter than the metal wheels that come with the standard 488 GTB.

Carbon Revolution has worked with several car manufacturers in the past to ensure the wheels it made for aftermarket fitment to brands such as Porsche, Lamborghini and others exceeded the car-makers’ requirements.

Mr Dingle said Ferrari’s decision to use Carbon Revolution wheels was important because the Italian car-maker was seen as a leader in innovation in the automotive industry. He said it was a great achievement for Carbon Revolution to meet Ferrari’s standards.

The Ferrari deal is the third original equipment contract signed by Carbon Revolution. Ford was the first car-maker in line when it placed orders for wheels to fit its Ford GT and then for the Mustang Shelby GT350R, both of which are still in production.

While Ferrari Australasia was unable to confirm to GoAuto the exact Australian allocation for the 488 Pista, a spokesperson said that given the average Ferrari owner spends $65,000 on options, this should be enough to cover a set of carbon-fibre wheels for those who want the very latest technology.

Carbon Revolution mastered how to make one-piece carbon-fibre wheels several years ago and is now in the process of replacing the manual labour that was previously required, particularly for the lay-up process where the pieces of carbon-fibre material are placed into the mould before the polymer is injected.

The first step was to mechanise all the processes and now the company is working on automating the entire production process.

Mr Dingle has previously outlined the company’s goal of reducing the price of carbon-fibre wheels to the point that they become affordable for use on high-volume passenger cars, not just high performance sportscars.

Apart from the intrinsic weight saving of carbon-fibre wheels, which improves fuel economy, the lighter wheels lead to lighter suspension parts and better handling.

The company is in talks with several global car-makers about the adoption of Carbon Revolution’s wheels, as the fuel economy gains will give them a competitive edge and also a taxation edge in some countries where cars are taxed according to their emissions/fuel consumption.

He said the company has “multiple committed programs” with global car-makers at “progressively higher production volumes” and the company needs to further expand its production facilities, which are located at the Waurn Ponds campus of Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria.

The company raised new capital of $50 million in 2016 to fund the current production plant at Waurn Ponds, which has a capacity of 50,000 wheels a year. Mr Dingle said Carbon Revolution will have to raise as much as $100 million in the near future in order to expand the plant’s capacity to 250,000 wheels a year.

After that, new plants will be located overseas, closer to customers’ car factories, and the local operation will be used as a test bed and also as a production site for larger but small-volume wheels for trucks and aeroplanes.

By Ian Porter