While aluminum is masking inroads — pun intended — in the automotive industry, it’s easy to forget that this all flows downstream. If aluminum bodied cars are going to flood the market, then repair shops will have to know how to handle repairs. At least that’s what Carstar anticipated when it instituted an aluminum certification program for its employees — and now the company is reaping the benefits. From the Kansas City Star:

The road ahead for Carstar could be paved in aluminum.

The Leawood-based auto body repair company said it finished 2014 with record North American revenue of $712 million, up about 10 percent from the previous year.

And business this year is already getting a boost from aluminum repair work on vehicles in some of the company’s key markets, particularly those areas “with higher ownership of the Ford F-150 and more exotic cars like the Tesla,” said David Byers, chief executive officer at Carstar Auto Body Repair Experts.

The new F-150 pickup truck, for example, is being touted for its innovative aluminum body, which is lighter than steel and should improve fuel efficiency. The truck has been in dealer showrooms only a few months.

Tesla’s Model S is already becoming the go-to luxury sedan and the Ford F-150 had a strong first sales month, so aluminum-ready body shops will only see more and more business. The lesson here? Adapt to the times, especially if that means working with aluminum.

From Ford to Tesla, aluminum has become a prominent part of consumer trucks and cars now. However,

other vehicle manufacturers are now seeing the functional benefits and performance value of

aluminum. Pride Bodies, a manufacturer of service trucks and cranes, has decided to take the aluminum

plunge. From Fleet Owner:

Pride Bodies has released a new service truck body mechanics bumper that is 200 lbs. lighter due to the

use of aluminum in place of steel.

Aluminum reduces weight, fuel costs and provides a material that will withstand the ravages of salt and

liquid calcium chloride, the company said.

“Durable aluminum bodies allow our customers to consequently reduce the truck class while increasing

the payload.   With the cost of fuel and the intensity of DOT monitoring of truck weights assembling the

right combination of chassis and truck body is important in today’s economy,” said Russ Lanthier,

president.

Fuel economy is driving everything in the auto industry, and with aluminum’s consistent performance in

the consumer market, it was just a matter of time before industrial vehicles followed suit. For Pride, the

aluminum mechanics bumper may just be the start as the company weighs the possibilities of further

steel-to-aluminum conversions.

It’s not just a groundbreaking vehicle. It’s not just a leader in design and innovation. The Ford F-150 is more than that; in fact, it’s the North American Truck Of The Year. Selected by a large panel of North American-based auto writers, the F-150 started off the year with plenty of questions but is enjoying sales and accolades along with its new aluminum frame. From USA Today:

Ford Motor’s aluminum-body 2015 F-150 pickup won the North American Truck of the Year award by topping the votes of the independent, 57-member jury of U.S. and Canadian auto writers and editors.

The Ford is first standard-duty pickup to use an aluminum body, which cuts weight for better mileage and greater towing and hauling capabilities. It also drives more nimbly than most pickups.It went on sale in November.

It was the eighth time Ford has won the truck trophy in the award’s 22-year history, and the fourth time for F-150.

Tangential to this, Ford has announced that it will focus its aluminum efforts on its truck line rather than both cars and trucks. Ford believes there are other ways to maximize fuel efficiency without an aluminum body; however, we’ll see how closely they stick to this as other auto manufacturers have done quite well with an aluminum body on their cars (hello, Tesla).

It’s safe to say that the aluminum revolution has begun for American automakers. With the Ford F-150 rollout hitting a full stride, news has come out that Cadillac’s luxury sedan line will soon be making good use of our favorite metal. According to Automobile Magazine, the new Cadillac CT6 will feature an aluminum body when it gets unveiled in the near future.

Will the new Cadillac CT6 have the rakish, expressive styling of the Elmiraj show car, or will it be a conservative evolution of the luxury brand’s current design language? While those questions will linger probably until the CT6 is unveiled later in 2015, AUTOMOBILE has learned this about the sedan, which uses General Motors’ new Omega full-size rear-wheel-drive platform: It will have an aluminum body.

The Cadillac CT6, which will be a bit smaller than a Mercedes-Benz S-Class but larger than the midsize CTS, also will be the first to use an engine, or engines, from GM’s upcoming four-/six-/eight-cylinder family. We have learned that while a CT6 Vsport has been approved for production, there’s no word on a CT6-V yet, so some sort of turbocharged- or supercharged-six seems likely.

The aluminum body, which potentially keeps the new sedan in or close to the CTS’s 3,700-4,100-pound weight category, suggests that the CT6 is designed to aim for the Mercedes CLS-Class, BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe, and Audi A7 even if its styling doesn’t classify it as a so-called four-door sport coupe.

The new CT6 is expected to be revealed at car shows during the first half of the new year. Expect a lot of hype and press, as Cadillac has already called the sedan its new flagship vehicle.

Would you speed across the rails in a train car made of aluminum foam?

Sounds like a risky proposition, but it’s actually safe, strong, and mass-efficient. All of these things make this new aluminum-based composite one of the most exciting innovations the mass transit industry has seen in years. From Wired:

Americans have long been promised high-speed rail, but to date, we’re still far behind Europe and Asia when it comes to rolling stock. Now, we have one more train technology to envy our brethren across the pond: Trains made of aluminum foam, a material that’s stronger, lighter, and better in a crash than fiberglass or regular old metal.

Engineers in Chemitz, Germany unveiled a prototype high-speed train cab made with the stuff earlier this year. The composite material is built like a sandwich: Between two pieces of aluminum, each just two millimeters thick, is a 25-millimeter-thick layer of the “foam,” actually a low-density, sponge-like composite of magnesium, silicon, and copper, and aluminum. And like a good sandwich, there’s no glue. The layers are held together by metallic bonding, the electrostatic attraction of negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions.

The result is a material that’s 20 percent lighter than traditional fiberglass, which is commonly used on high-speed train cabs. That’s a big advantage when the goal is to move faster and more efficiently. Even better, it doesn’t come at the cost of a weaker train. “The outer shell is so stiff that you need no ribs inside,” says Dr. Thomas Hipke, head of lightweight construction at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology, which helped to design the prototype train cab. Peel tests of aluminum foam—in which force is applied to pull apart the layers of the material—destroy the foam interior instead of breaking the bonds between the layers, demonstrating the strength of the bonding.

To the layperson, the idea of 200 MPH inside of an aluminum-based tube sounds frightening. However, the science behind it is solid: it’s safer and more efficient than traditional materials, meaning that it gets the job done while being less taxing on our energy resources. Just like the Ford F-150, it’s another breakthrough innovation thanks to aluminum.