Why pursue lightness in a world that often celebrates more? By investing in engineering, advanced software, and emerging technologies, we’ve created an approach that lives at the intersection of motorsport precision and luxury craftsmanship. These aren’t just structures — they’re finely tuned, detailed creations, closer in spirit to watchmaking than to mass manufacturing. Sometimes, less truly is more. At Oilstainlab, we set out to build lightweight cars, not because it’s easy, but precisely because it’s difficult. It’s a space where we can bring something unique, and where smaller, focused teams like ours can chase ideas that large companies often can’t justify. Designing for lightness demands clarity, a tightly defined purpose, and the willingness to question everything. Every component, every fastener, every load, every gram is both a challenge and an opportunity. What makes the pursuit so rewarding is the way every decision compounds. Saving weight in one area unlocks opportunities in another: a lighter chassis allows for smaller brakes, which reduces unsprung mass, which then influences suspension and chassis design. The cycle continues, and before long, the entire vehicle becomes a showcase of lightness. In a market where cars seem to grow larger and heavier each year, the decision to focus on weight can feel countercultural. Yet with new materials technologies and processes, its possible if you’re willing to take the harder path. It is often simpler and cheaper to add a bigger screen, more horsepower, or software tricks to mask mass. But those are surface-level fixes. True lightness changes the very DNA of a car. Pursuing lightweight design will never be the easy road. And perhaps that’s why so few continue to follow it..... Andrew Shedden CEng. MIMechE Iliya Bridan Nikita Bridan Joe Scarbo HRE Wheels
Well said and we agree. The pursuit of less is a tough road, but a rewarding one.
If you're ever looking for rapid prototyping or low-volume manufacturing, Cherry has your back.
Have you carried out material characterisation for the AM structural parts?
You’re DNA’ing Chapman, his seminal quote, “Simplify, then add lightness,” his philosophy way before minimalism became the high street term. “Adding power makes you faster on the straights, subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere.” Makes me wonder what a Lotus 49 done with today’s tech would weigh in at, and more so, how it would run, with modern tires, and so forth. Not at meaning to digress the post, simply to add to a very difficult road and path to choose, even Ai tends to complicate rather than simplify. Then again, having watched some vids of more up to date modern drivers and tires in Denny Hulme’s BatMobile, they had a hard time matching his times. Times change. Some things need to stay the same, like lightness, and simplicity.
Nice
Oilstainlab - If more automotive brands were to adopt this way of thinking, It’d save loads of us car enthusiasts from have multiple garages of removed parts from cars we end up making lighter ourselves! Loving everything that is Oilstainlab ✨👌
A vehicle built to extract the highest performance and safety by focusing on the fundamental drivers of both. Everything we need, and nothing we don't. It puzzles me why that decision even became countercultural in the first place.
Would love the opportunity to have a call with you on this topic, and introduce the way we go about lightweighting projects and see if there's an appetite for collaboration.