How much does a Porsche door cost?

[Ross Nicol]

Next to me in the garage at last weekends race meeting was
a cheque book driver with a GT3 RS.Now on these cars the doors come off at the hinges, so it was lying against a wall
and curiosity got the better of me so I picked it up to see how heavy it was.Well it was as light as a box of feathers, made out of carbon fibre and get this cost 7000 australian dollars.Woah you get a lot of GT40 for that money I thought
and put it down very gently.My left hand door has been pranged up a bit it'll probably cost me $20 to fix.

Ross

 

[ChrisL]

There was an article in the local newspaper recently about an Australian company (Melbourne based) that had patented a method of creating carbon-fibre components at a small fraction of the cost.

This process apparently allows c/f components to be made very quickly (minutes instead of hours) which means that mass production is now viable. A number of the major car manufacturers have bought the rights to use this technology so, the article says, c/f components would soon become common-place on ordinary road cars. (That $7000 door may soon cost $1000).

Incidentally, the only breakthrough secret that they gave away was that the manufacturing process involved heating the c/f by immersing it in a tank of hot water.

Did anyone else catch that article? I meant to keep the newspaper but unfortunately it got tossed out.