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Most of us don't realize how much progress there has been (and is still going on) in the development of new aluminum alloys, heat treating etc.

Possibly more than any other material on a car or at least tied with tire rubber.

To illustrate the point. After the fall of the Berlin Wall a prewar Auto Union race car turned up behind the Iron Curtain. It was shipped to England for restoration.

Now this was the most sophisticated race car of its day with an all aluminum, supercharged double overhead cam engine producing over 600 horsepower. It embodied all the latest German technology and materials science.

The cylinder head was ruined and had to be remade. The restorers went to a great deal of trouble to produce an exact duplicate. They had the original material analysed by the biggest aluminum company in England. When the report came back the aluminum company's metalurgist commented "this is the kind of stuff we use for lamp posts and lawn furniture".

Going back farther to the 1920s I recall a comment made by Buckminster Fuller: "There were only 2 alloys of aluminum - soft and softer. I had to wait 25 years before I could get the materials to build the way I wanted to."

This may be a slight exaggeration.

The first efforts I know of to make aluminum pistons were undertaken by W.O. Bentley in WW1. I know he had a lot of trouble making pistons that would not melt or develop blow holes.

The point is making pistons out of aluminum at that time was at the cutting edge of technology and mechanical science.

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-> This article takes a closer look at the influence of a Packard twelve-cylinder engine on Enzo Ferrari's engine developments.