Prices of CART/IRL cars a complete mystery to me

[Franklin]

Take a look at the www.nemesisnxt.com site and you'll see how a small and talented team can build as much carbon fiber structure and wings as you would find in an Indy car but for hardly a tenth the price of an IRL car.

There are five basic progressions in composite construction.
1. Wet layups.
2. Wet layups with vacuum bagging.
3. Prepregs.
4. Prepregs with vacuum bagging.
5. Prepregs with an autoclave.
With each progression, you're not increasing the absolute strength so much as
you're increasing the strength to weight ratio by lowering the resin to cloth
ratio. (On a side note, given that an autoclave operates at the same
temperatures as a home kitchen oven and at the same pressures as a home water
heater there is no reason why an inventive person could not build an autoclave
in their garage or home workshop.)

In every other industry where they've been used (boats, kit planes, replica
kit cars, etc), composites have DECREASED both manufacturing costs and prices
to the consumer. How in Indy cars composite construction has come to symbolize
the ultimate in expense is a complete mystery to me. The bottom line? An expert
composites engineer could probably design a safe Indy car tub that people could
fabricate from scratch in their own garage.