Building a car like the BellaRiva is not something you do alone. Behind every part there are partners who push their own trade as far as we push ours. Suppliers of materials, machining, electronics, trim. Without them, the specification does not hold.
Today, we are introducing one of them.
Isomatex, and its material TENRON
Isomatex is a Belgian company. It produces TENRON, a 100% mineral material made from a blend of minerals quarried in Western Europe, melted in a furnace at very high temperature and then extruded into filaments of 9, 10 or 11 microns. Seven times finer than a hair. Those fibres are then woven, and combined with a resin to form a composite.
TENRON has been accredited for aerospace since July 2024. It turns up elsewhere too: with ski manufacturers, in body armour, on professional racing bikes. Anywhere you need to take a hit, stay light and not give way.
If we chose to work with Isomatex, it is because TENRON combines material innovation with practical answers to the challenges of building this kind of car. Four of them, to be exact.
1. It takes the hit where carbon breaks
Carbon absorbs energy very well. Up to its breaking point. Past that threshold it does not bend: it snaps, clean.
TENRON absorbs energy under impact while preserving its structural integrity. By combining it with carbon, or using it on its own in certain places on the car, we get two things at once: flex where a part has to be able to work, and greater stiffness and strength than we would have with carbon throughout.
It is the kind of trade-off you cannot see once the car is finished. But you feel it on the road.
2. It resists fire
TENRON holds up against fire, and for a long time. On a supercar the point is obvious, even if a fire remains the extreme scenario nobody would wish on anyone.
The real benefit is day to day. A car like this one produces heat, a great deal of it, and you need to know where it goes. Being able to insulate it, spread it, or on the contrary contain it within certain specific areas, is a genuine gain for the rest of the car.
3. It is light
On a car whose performance you are trying to push, every kilo counts. And every kilo is a trade-off.
On the BellaRiva, some material choices were forced on us by other requirements, and they weigh. So we choose materials that reduce weight while delivering the strength the car demands. That is exactly what TENRON allows.
4. It recycles completely
Many high-performance composites do not break down, or do so badly. They are partly recycled, and what remains is practically unrecoverable.
TENRON recycles completely. A cycle that closes.
For a car designed to stay on the road for years to come, recoverability matters from the very beginning. Building it generates offcuts, test pieces and rejected components. Being able to recover these materials and give them a further use matters to us.
A Belgian material on a Belgian car
Designed and hand-assembled here, with a material produced locally. That is not a coincidence of timing, it is a way of working.
These are only a few words about a partnership we are very proud of, and one we will have the pleasure of setting out in full when the car is unveiled, with pictures of the BellaRiva to go with it.
Don't miss a thing
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, and sign up to our newsletter at gillet-automobiles.com.