# Mallite

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[[File:Cosworth F1 Donington Collection.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The Mallite-bodied, [four-wheel drive](/source/four-wheel_drive), [Cosworth](/source/Cosworth) [Formula One](/source/Formula_One) car.]]
'''Mallite''' is a type of [laminate](/source/laminate) [composite material](/source/composite_material), formerly manufactured by the ''William Mallinson & Sons'' company. The material is formed of a core sheet of [end grain](/source/Wood_grain) [balsa](/source/balsa) wood, faced by [duralumin](/source/duralumin) sheets.<ref name=rce2012 >{{Cite magazine|author= Lis, Alan |year= 2012 |title= Current trends in composite thinking |url= https://www.racecar-engineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/compositesMAINOpti.pdf |magazine= [Racecar Engineering](/source/Racecar_Engineering) |issue= Composites 2012 |access-date= 10 November 2025 }}</ref> This construction endows the finished material with greater strength and rigidity than a light alloy sheet of equal mass. The material was originally developed in the late 1950s for use in the aerospace industry, primarily for use in flooring and internal partitioning in jet [airliner](/source/airliner) construction. However, it found fame as one of the first engineered composite materials to be employed in the motorsport industry. [Robin Herd](/source/Robin_Herd), formerly a designer on the [Concorde](/source/Concorde) project, used his aerospace knowledge to design the first [McLaren](/source/McLaren_(racing)) single-seater racing cars. The M2A prototype used Mallite extensively, throughout its construction. The final production model, the [Formula One](/source/Formula_One) [McLaren M2B](/source/McLaren_M2B) of 1966, only used Mallite for its internal skins and lower bodywork;<ref name=m2b >{{cite web|title=THE M2B |url=http://www.mclaren.com/features/anniversary/m2b.php |work=McLaren.com |access-date=2008-08-31 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927031317/http://www.mclaren.com/features/anniversary/m2b.php |archive-date=September 27, 2007 }}</ref> a lack of understanding of the material's properties had led the team to design the car with conventional curved bodywork, creating problems during the fabrication process as the inherently inflexible material would not readily conform to complex, compound curvatures. With greater understanding of Mallite's properties Herd later used the material to construct the unraced [Cosworth](/source/Cosworth) [four-wheel drive](/source/four-wheel_drive) [Formula One](/source/Formula_One) car of 1969, noted for its slab-sided, angular looks.

==References==
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Category:Composite materials
Category:Brand name materials

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Mallite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallite) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallite?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.