PopSci's Best of What's New 2007

Automotive
Mercedes AMG Alubeam

A finish like a carved block of silver

There’s silver paint, and then there’s paint that makes a car shimmer like it was cast from solid silver. Mercedes-Benz’s new Alubeam paint, designed in conjunction with BASF, contains aluminum pigments 30 to 50 nanometers across, a tenth the size of conventional paint pigments. Whereas thicker particles lie haphazardly and scatter light, the Alubeam particles sit flatter on the surface, so they reflect light more dramatically and create an effect akin to a metallic skin. For now, the hand-applied finish will appear only on the CL65 AMG 40th Anniversary Edition, a 604-horsepower, $295,000 luxury coupe—only 40 of which will be made—but the companies are working on a way to automate the application so that even less expensive cars can look like a million bucks. mercedes.com

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