Since appearing on the automotive scene in 1899, aluminum has taken a somewhat leisurely route to establish itself as “the manufacturing material of the future.” Ford Motor Company kicked off the material’s belated coming-out party with production of its 2015 F150 truck body and bed components that are 97 percent aluminum alloys.

After more than a century of progressively more mainstream application of aluminum – enabled by continual processing, fabrication and alloys innovations – the material seems to have (finally) arrived.