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Carrots steer the way with Vegetable based Racing Car

Posted on 05. May, 2009 by Tracey in News

There are many uses for vegetables such as carrots and potatoes like Sunday dinner, salads, chutneys, preserves and building F3 Racing cars.

The University of Warwick’s Manufacturing Group and the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre in Coventry, UK have built the worlds first environmentally sustainable F3 racing car, with a bodywork consisting of potato fibres mixed with resins.

Carrots and other root vegetables make up the steering wheel and soyabean oil and flax fibre formed the foam seat. Lubricant oils were derived from plants and the car’s bio-diesel engine runs on refined chocolate waste and vegetable oil.

The team of five worked on the eco-friendly car for nine months with help from 20 other manufacturing bodies. The F3 car nicknamed ‘EcoF3′ cost £150,000 to build, now that’s a lot of vegetables and chocolate! and has a top speed of between 125 – 145 mph.

Links
BBC Video Interview
The University of Warwick