Chrysler lightweight aluminum vehicle design

Used to illustrate that you can't get full weight-savings benefit from material substitution without redesigning the system (engine displacement) around it.

I can remember going to Chrysler twenty-five years ago. They were working on a new smaller vehicle and they were going to make an all-aluminum version. They had a 1.6 liter engine. When they went to the lightweight aluminum, they didn't really get as good a bang for the buck on fuel savings, because they were still using the 1.6 liter engine. If they'd actually had a 1.2 liter engine for this small car, they could have gotten even more fuel savings. But you can't just go out and design a whole new engine just because you switched materials. They were using aluminum for the sheet metal of the body, saving weight — they could have saved a lot more weight on the engine too. To get the full advantage of the material, you really have to design the whole thing from scratch.