World's greatest car's surprising Aussie link: $7 million 2026 Ferrari F80 couldn't have happened without a standout Australian company

Hidden out of sight beneath the absurdly aerodynamic shape of Ferrari’s new $7 million hypercar, the F80, are four “Made in Australia” stickers.

Despite Ferrari throwing every ounce of its engineering nous — and borrowing plenty from its Formula One operation across the road in Maranello — when it came to creating the four stunning looking carbon-fibre wheels on which it sits, the Italians realised they couldn’t do the work themselves. So they reached out to the world’s very best, Carbon Revolution in Geelong.

The F80 — which is powered by a 3.0-litre turbocharged hybrid V6 that makes 20 per cent more power than an F1 car (1200 horsepower, or 883kW) — is a car very much focused on maximising its frankly absurd power-to-weight ratio (it smashes all kinds of records by producing a nice, round 300 horsepower per litre), as Ferrari chassis engineer Andrew Pioli explained.

“We are looking to save weight everywhere, but it’s particularly important with the wheels, because this gives us the chance to reduce unsprung mass, and by using these carbon wheels, we calculated that, compared to those made from cast aluminium, we can save 16 kilograms in total, or four kilograms per wheel,” Pioli enthused. At this point we asked him about the Made in Australia stickers on the naked wheel we were looking at.

“Are you from Australia? Well you should be very, very proud of this company, Carbon Revolution, and the job they do. We at Ferrari have had a strong relationship with them since 2015, that was when they did the wheels for the 488 Pista, that was the first car that had the 10-spoke carbon wheels, very nice wheels,” he added.

“But this time we did something much better, and much more difficult, with out partner, because we cut the number of spokes in half, and we wanted to increase the stiffness, and also save weight.

“So, of course, the starting point is engineering, but then we sparkle a little bit of style on top of that, the styling department is very much involved and we try to make the wheels beautiful as well, because if something is just pure engineering, well, sometimes engineering alone might not create the most beautiful thing in the world. But just look at these wheels.”

We had to ask, wouldn’t it be cheaper, or perhaps more Ferrari, to do the work yourself? But Pioli insisted that, price aside, it was simply more technically beneficial to use Carbon Revolution, even if they are based on the other side of the world.

“They are very expert, they were the first supplier that built carbon fibre wheels, and so they have a deep knowledge in the design calculation, they have old patents, but Ferrari has the recipe, and we know the loads required, what needs to go into the component, so we co-design it. I think a single actor could not develop such a component, but together we can,” he said.

“And for sure, we will continue to work with Carbon Revolution in the future.”

Incredibly, while the five-spoke carbon fibre wheels — 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear — are included as standard in the hefty $7 million purchase price, you can have aluminium wheels instead, as options, “in case you want to use them with winter tyres”.

The very idea of driving a car with this much power on snow-covered roads with winter tyres is, frankly, chilling.

Along with the 488 Pista, Carbon Revolution — which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the US — has also produced wheels for the Ferrari SF90, the S90 XX, the 296 GTB and GTS, the F8 Tributo and the 812 Competitizione.

And aside from Ferrari, the company has also provided carbon fibre wheels for the Range Rover Sport SV, the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and the Ford Mustang Dark Horse, to name just a few.