Quickstep secures AMGC co-funding for development of automotive carbon fibre front fender

Quickstep Holdings, the manufacturer of advanced carbon fibre composites, is pleased to announce that its Automotive Division has been successful in securing an Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC) grant of $250,000 for a new project to develop a ‘Low cost carbon composite fender for the European automotive market’ with the potential to generate export revenue of $25 million.

Phase one of the AMGC project will run for a period of six months in cooperation with Deakin University’s Carbon Nexus Research Centre for carbon fibre and composites, who will provide expertise in materials development and process simulation and validation to the AMGC project. Quickstep will bring to the project its capabilities in developing advanced composite solutions, providing its advanced composites technologies to manufacture composite parts using its patented Qure and RST processes.

Based on discussions with a number of leading European automakers, the development of a more automated and rate flexible process to produce low cost fenders is of significant interest. Beyond the targeted customer for this demonstrator fender part, Quickstep believes there is considerable potential for the development of additional composite automotive parts with similar levels of complexity when the development of the fender component is complete.