MAcarbon's Blog

How much is perfection worth? There is nothing like the pure joy and satisfaction that comes to you when in the presence of an automotive object that is truly fine art. Once you are seated, it continues with the aroma of finely crafted leather. Then you cannot help but run your fingers across the smooth carbon fiber and finally your eyes focus on the intricate craftsmanship. You just have to ponder the elegant beauty and simplicity in its form and design all wrapped up in the proper red and black hue. Adorned with the famous prancing horse, one would expect nothing less than perfection!

Yes, the Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale at San Francisco Sports Cars is an amazing car. But what I am talking about is the MAcarbon steering wheel that it has! So beautiful that some say that it alone should be priced at $150K!  Those ‘some’ happen to be in the MAcarbon office, but still! This steering wheel was designed by the previous owner of the car to do just what we said above – match this 360CS perfectly. So buy the steering wheel for one hundred fifty large and our friends at San Francisco Sports Cars will throw in the Ferrari for free!

About the 360CS: This car evokes the days of G.T. racing when Lemans cars still had license plates. Perfect for a banzai run down Skyline Boulevard or taking a turn at your local road course. With Formula One derived paddle shifting, launch control and Carbon-Ceramic brakes you too will feel as dominant as Michael Schumaker.

The use of composites plays a significant role in the weight reduction of the 360CS. The bumpers and skirts use the RTM (resin transfer molding) process which was developed for the 360 Challenge track cars. This innovation with composites extends to the brakes as well with their carbon-ceramic rotors and pads. It doesn’t end there as carbon fiber is the material of choice for the seats, door panels, engine bay exhaust vents, outside mirrors and engine shrouding. In the name of lightness titanium wheel bolts and coil springs lower not only the unsprung weight but lap times as well.

In fact, when driven in anger around Ferrari’s test track, Fiorano, the Challenge Stradale was three and a half seconds quicker than a standard 360 Modena. On a racetrack when a half second is an eternity, three and a half is truly impressive. Patricio Moruzzi and his team of engineers outdid themselves with the CS.

        Each MAcarbon 360/360CS steering wheel is individually built to your unique specification. You select each element including leather type (smooth, perforated, suede), leather color, carbon or not, stitching type, stitching color, rim thickness, etc. Pricing depends on the options chosen.

We will create the custom wheel for you then send it to you. You have it installed and then send us back your old wheel. You may choose to keep your original wheel as well. (Contact MAcarbon if you wish to keep your original wheel.)

Looking for an exotic? See our friends at San Francisco Sports Cars … Already have an exotic in your stable? See us for a steering wheel upgrade. The image below represents our steering wheel Configurator

At www.MAcarbon.com  you can find our steering wheel Configurator to help you decide which wheel is right for you. Go ahead … play around with all the various colors and options before purchasing.

John left San Francisco on a Thursday afternoon for a weekend trip to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates,  to install some of our latest carbon fiber parts into not one but two beautiful Ferrari 458 Italias.  After a long 16 hour flight, he arrived!  Our gracious host, Mohammed Al Sayegh, President of ALSA Automotive Engineering (http://www.alsa.cc/) , took John out to an excellent dinner and made family introductions for a warm welcome to the city.  John then headed back to his hotel (at 2 am!) for a “solid” night’s sleep before the work really started…

On Saturday John headed over to ALSA Automotive Engineering to begin work on the first car, the red Ferrari.  John and the ALSA team made great progress, finishing work on the interior and exterior door handles, mirror triangles, passenger grab handle and also removing the OEM center console.  The doors were done first as we had not installed the exterior mirror triangles before.  Best to tackle the unknown early in an install then wait till time is short.  Saturday night our generous host treated John to a tour of the Yas Marina F1 circuit, and they ate at the spectacular Yas Marina 5-Star Hotel.  John even got a ride in Mohammed’s Mercedes SLR McLaren!

Sunday morning it was back to work toiling away on the red 458…until the black one rolled in!  Since this one was only getting carbon fiber for the center console and doors, John took a break from the red Ferrari to complete work on the black one, finishing in time for its owner to drive it back to Dubai that afternoon.  Back on the red Ferrari, by Sunday night the new carbon fiber center console was installed and the OEM dash was completely removed from the car.

On Monday, John finished up by installing the carbon dash and the door sills. A final night out with our host and his friends was a great finale to the trip.  Only 3 hours of sleep Monday night assured that much of Tuesday’s 16 hour return flight to San Francisco was spent snoozing!

Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Parts all laid out in the shop prior to leaving:

View from the hotel:

The twins:

The DIFFERENCE…you know you want it!

Center consoles assembled and ready to install:

Another angle:

Black 458′s interior, console installed:

Want to see what’s behind a Ferrari 458 dash?  A whole lot of wiring…

In progress…

Red 458 interior, dash parts installed:

Red 458, mirror triangles and door handles installed:

Before:

In progress:

After:

MAcarbon’s Wheel Configurator enables you to create the perfect custom steering wheel for your exotic or luxury car. Our latest version of the Configurator is now live! We’ve taken our old configuration and streamlined it, adding some new features based on feedback we’ve received from customers.

• A “Start Order Process” button has been added. This makes it easier for the customer to initiate the order. Before, the customer was left wondering what to do once they had finalized their design. Now, the order process can be initialized right from the Configurator.
• We’ve added the ability to display photos of each wheel option. This gives you the ability to preview live photos of many stitching, ring, and material patterns. The rightmost column has icons that activate if there are available pictures.
• We’ve consolidated all our help options into one location at the top right of the screen. This section includes separate buttons for Chat, General Help, and the Wheel Program FAQ.
• The FAQ answers common questions (duh!) about the wheel program directly form the Configurator. These include things such as
• Will a Ferrari 360 wheel fit my 355?
• Will a later model Lamborghini Gallardo wheel fit my earlier model Lamborghini?
• What is a hub?
• etc.
• Thread and ring galleries showing examples of many options have been linked into the Configurator. This pouts all the versions in one place for easy viewing.

Try it out here and let us know what you think!

MAcarbon is lucky to be located less than 2 hours from Monterey, CA where some of the best car events in the world are held every year over a span of 4 days.  We have had a booth at the Concorso Italiano for 7 years running and it is always a highlight of our year.  We get to show off our products and see our customers that we only know from talking on the phone and exchanging emails.

We arrived at the show on Thursday to set up our booth, then we drove up to the club house to have dinner with the Lamborghini Club of America.  In attendence at the dinner was The legendary Lamborghini test driver, Valentino Balboni and Anthony Ray A.K.A. “Sir Mix-a-Lot”.  A big thanks to Andrew Romanowski for having us at the dinner…It was a blast!

The next day, we went to the show where we were surrounded by Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other exotic cars.  We counted about 20-25 cars on the green with MAcarbon parts installed, including a Ferrari F50 GT1 (1 of 3).  We made two sets of diffuser fins for this car and it was one of the highlights of the show.

Here are some pictures from the show…Enjoy!

MAcarbon will be sponsoring the upcoming Exotics Expose-Supercar & Exotics Car Show on September 12th at Old Westbury Gardens in Wesbury, New York.
We will have a both set up and several cars in show will have MAcarbon parts. Detailing Dynamics is putting on this show with Exotics Rally and Detailing Dynamics will have a Ferrari 360 and Porsche 997 GT3 with complete MAcarbon interiors featured.
We look forward to seeing all of our present and future customers and enjoying what is guaranteed to be an incredible show.

Our steering wheels have been very popular with MAcarbon’s customers. Each wheel is made to the customer’s specification with a myriad of options for them to pick from. Photos of previous wheels helped customers get some ideas but most had to simply imagine what the wheel would look like. This flexibility has also lead to a lot of confusion on how much a wheel would actually cost. So after almost six months of development, MAcarbon has launched our online wheel configurator. Now a customer can play around with all of the options available for a wheel, see right in the window what the wheel willlook like and have the system automatically calculate the price. The customer can then email the configuration to themselves when done.

We have launched the application with two of our most popular wheels. The first wheel is the Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale. THe 360CS interior is almost all carbon already and a CF wheel makes a big impact. The second whell is the Porsche 997 Gen 1 Sport wheel which Porsche does not offer in carbon. We will be adding more wheels over the coming days.

Even with the configurator, properly spec’ing out a wheel involves a lot of decisions. The customer can chat directly with MAcarbon as they use the tool as well as call us.

Try the Configurator your self with this link: MAcarbon Wheel Configurator

Screen shot of the MAcarbon Wheel Configurator

We installed our first set of Ferrari 430/360 carbon fiber door handles on this amazing 430. The customer is local and brought his car in for the installation. The car also has MAcarbon mirrors and engine bay vents. The handles made a nice compliment to the carbon mirrors.Imagine them on a 430 Scuderia or a 360 CS!

Installation of the handles takes about twenty minutes and can be done by the customer at home.

We have a F50 customer in Italy who asked us to do the dash switches on his F50. These switches often turn gummy and look nasty. They don’t look good in a 355, let alone in a F50! To remedy the situation, we recoated them in carbon. They should match the carbon dash of the car nicely. This project is not for the faint of heart as we had to start with all new switches (at $275 each) so that we knew they would work when we were done.