Even if you are a fan of high-performance cars and motor-sport, you may have never heard of wheel manufacturer 2Elle Engineering, which is based near Venice (Italy) and uses machine tools from the American company Haas.

Luigi Lucaora, 2Elle founder and owner, says: “Our customers include BMW, Mercedes, Audi, the German tuning house Brabus, and several race teams in categories ranging from F1 to Paris Dakar. That said, you won’t see the ‘two L’ name on any of our products; we like to keep our brand below the radar, so that we can work for all the big marques without compromise.

We supply some of the best high-performance wheels in the world, and almost no one except the customer knows they come from here.”

Mr Lucaora stresses that despite its low profile, 2Elle is much more than a busy CNC machine shop. “I spent 18 years as an engineer, so first and foremost we develop new materials, new technology — such as hybrids — and lighter, stronger wheel designs for the fastest cars in the world.”

Before moving to its current premises in 2008, 2Elle didn’t make anything in-house. “We only did the engineering, development and quality control, as for the first two years we sub-contracted our machining requirement.”

Having decided to bring machining in-house, Mr Lucaora chose to install machines from Haas (www.haascnc.com), as these had been used by his sub-contractor without any problems. He bought three Haas CNC lathes — two ST 40s and an ST-30 — and a Haas VM-6 vertical machining centre.

Game-changing order

Asked how a company like 2Elle — an engineering start-up in a very competitive global niche market — was able to get a foothold and thrive during one of the most severe financial and economic crises in history, Mr Lucaora said: “It was one particular order that really kick-started the company.

An important German tuning company offered me a large contract if I promised to meet certain delivery criteria. I went to the bank with their letter of intent, and that was enough of a business plan for the bank to lend us the money to move to our new factory. Since then, we have grown by at least 20% each year; last year we managed 40%. In just seven years, we’ve come from nothing to a turnover of around 5 million euros!”

While the 2Elle factory is somewhat cavernous, much of it is usually filled with wheel blanks from the company’s forging supplier in the USA.

“We receive three or four shipping containers every month, and we currently produce between 1,000 and 1,200 finished units a month,” says Mr Lucaora, whose technical background and experience allow his company to develop new designs and new materials, and thereby compete with the very best wheel manufacturers.

“We do a lot of laboratory tests and comparison tests. We also do finite element analysis to establish how much the tyre and wheel can be stressed, plus we fit tyres to our wheels and undertake practical tests so that we can better understand how they will behave in real life.”

The company’s Haas VM-6 operates for at least two and a half shifts a day, mostly manned. “During the day, we load the machine with just one wheel at a time, but at 10pm we load two wheels and set the machine to work overnight. The next shift comes in and unloads the parts at 6am.”

Fine finishes

The Haas VM-6 is a 40-taper mould-making machine with a 12,000rev/min in-line direct-drive spindle and a work envelope of 1,626 ¥ 813 x 762mm. In combination with the spindle, the Haas high-speed control with full look-ahead provides the accuracy and fine surface finishes that mould makers and other high-precision industries demand.

Mr Lucaora says: “The shapes we’re machining are similar to moulds, so the VM-6’s high-speed spindle and feeds are perfect. Moreover, the table is T-slotted in X and Y, which makes it easy to secure our parts. We’re also buying a smaller Haas VM-3 mould-making machine for some new hybrid wheel projects that we’re working on. These wheels will be made using alloy hubs coupled to carbon fibre rims, so the engineering and machining challenges will be interesting.”

With his growing ‘machine portfolio’, Mr Lucaora has noticed advantages that come with using Haas CNC machines. “Our operators find them east to program and use, which is important as they have to work on different machine types and need to be comfortable with the control.

The Haas Factory Outlet in Milan — operated by Celeada — supplies our machines and provides the technical service, which is both quick and efficient. We have a full order book for the next year, so I cannot afford to have any of the machines stop for any reason.”

Mr Lucaora makes regular trips to 2Elle’s forging supplier in the USA. “I was there on a visit when it was Haas’s 30th-anniversary celebration, so I called in and had a guided tour of the facility. I was very impressed by the
company’s organisation and quality. Moreover, it uses literally hundreds of its own machines to make new ones in a high-volume production environment. I think that says a lot about the company’s belief in its products.”