Racing Heritage, Sustainable Future: California Metals and the Lola T70S
When British motorsport marque Lola Cars set out to resurrect the T70 – the car that ran 1-2 at the 1969 Daytona 24 Hours with Mark Donohue and Chuck Parsons for Team Penske – they weren’t building a replica. They were setting out to prove that the most thrilling machines in history could be reborn with dramatically lower environmental impact. California Metals was part of that ambition from the start.
Limited to just 16 examples, the car is available in either track or road specification – the T70S and T70S GT. It combines a 530 bhp 5.0-litre Chevrolet V8 (T70S) or 500 bhp 6.2-litre V8 (T70S GT) with a lightweight aluminum monocoque, period-correct Hewland gearbox, and bodywork constructed from a 100% natural composite containing no petrochemical components whatsoever. An independently reviewed Life Cycle Assessment published by Lola reports approximately 54% lower CO₂ emissions compared to conventional manufacturing benchmarks.
California Metals’ materials are named and documented in that LCA. Here’s what we contributed.
The Materials Behind the Machine
4130 Steel Alloy Sheet Blair Strip Steel-produced 4130 alloy sheet, sourced through California Metals, was used for structural components across the T70S. The EPD-backed emission factor was applied directly to Lola’s carbon calculations – giving their LCA team the mill-level specificity that generic database averages cannot provide.
Al-2024-T3 Aluminum Chassis Sheet The 1.6mm Al-2024-T3 clad sheet forming the T70S monocoque chassis was produced by AMAG Rolling Mill in Austria and sourced through California Metals. AMAG’s independently published sustainability report confirms 76% recycled and recovered aluminum input, with a verified carbon intensity of just 0.163 kg CO₂/kg — well below industry averages. California Metals supplied 77 sheets at 1.5m × 2.5m for the program.
25CrMo4 Seamless Steel Tube Chassis structural tubing in 25CrMo4 alloy – i.d. 27.80mm / o.d. 31.80mm – was produced by Trafilubi Srl in Milan and delivered to California Metals in July 2025 for the x18 T70S build program. Traceable to a named mill, with certified dimensions and surface roughness to ISO EN 10305-1.
How We Selected the Materials
The three materials supplied to Lola were not selected on price or availability alone. Before a single order was placed, each was evaluated using California Metals’ CO2 Clarity Tool — our proprietary platform that transforms complex carbon footprint calculations into instant, actionable insights. Upload a mill certificate, receive an ISO 14040/14044-aligned CO₂e assessment in seconds. No spreadsheets, no manual data entry, no guesswork.
For Lola’s program, that meant running all material candidates through CO2 Clarity before they entered the supply chain. The tool confirmed that each supplier’s verified emission factors sat significantly below generic database averages — and generated the documentation trail that Lola’s LCA team needed to name those mills in their published report.
CO2 Clarity is built for exactly this kind of decision. It combines speed and simplicity (upload, calculate, share) with scientific rigour (ISO-aligned, peer-review ready), enterprise-grade security (SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, NIST compliant), and full supplier confidentiality through anonymisation and consent frameworks. It is the first solution that makes mill-level carbon intelligence accessible without requiring a dedicated LCA team to operate it.
Why Provenance Is Now Performance
Lola’s approach to the development of the T70S mirrors exactly what California Metals has been building toward: a supply chain where every emission claim is traceable to a specific mill, a specific process, a specific data source.
As Lola’s own LCA states: “In the best case, Lola has full visibility of the mill of origin, and full sustainability reporting for the products of interest from that same mill.”
California Metals exists precisely to serve that best case. We are not a catalogue manufacturer. We are a partner to engineers and project teams who need to close the gap between what their sustainability ambitions demand and what their supply chain can actually deliver – with documentation to match.
The T70S achieves an overall CO₂ reduction of approximately 54% against conventional benchmarks. For certain components – magnesium parts produced via solar-powered seawater electrolysis – reductions reach 80%. These are not estimates. They are the product of a methodology that required every supplier to produce EPD-backed, mill-level data. We met that standard. It’s the only standard we work to.
A Blueprint, Not a One-Off
The Lola T70S is 530 bhp of history reborn – with a bodywork system made from 100% natural composites, a chassis verified by independent lifecycle assessment, and a supply chain that can name its mills and cite its numbers. We are proud to be part of it, and proud that our participation is documented in a publicly available report rather than a press release.
If you are working on a program where material sustainability and performance are joint requirements – not trade-offs – we’d welcome the conversation.
© 2026 California Metals. All rights reserved.
