By Shea Gibbs, Senior Editor

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Several years ago, Wolverine Bronze Co., Roseville, Mich., was approached about the kind of job that was perfect for its newest metalcasting line.

The contract was to cast parts for the 14-liter, 1,200-horsepower DiMora Volcano V-16 engine. The parts would be produced in Wolverine Bronze’s low pressure precision sand casting process and eventually find their way into the $2 million DiMora Motorcar Natalia SLS 2 sport luxury sedan.

But the parts have yet to be produced, and Dick Smith, Wolverine president, now wonders if the project will ever get off the ground.

“As far as I know, they haven’t finished putting the deal together yet,” Smith said.

Wolverine Bronze, on the other hand, is still going forward. The company installed the precision sand line in 2003 with the intention of going after high end driveline components, produced in relatively small production runs of no more than 1,000. It added the new metalcasting line to its existing nobake capabilities hoping it would fill in some of the gaps of its core competencies, and while high-end automotive hasn’t turned out to be the most stable of markets, Smith said the line has proven valuable in producing a range of comparable castings.

Soon after the company installed the low pressure line, a high production automotive producer’s need for casting process development created a new opportunity for Wolverine Bronze. Through an alliance formed with Anderson Global, Muskegon Heights, Mich., and Ashland Performance Materials, Dublin, Ohio, the company developed a plan to provide a solution to the OEM’s needs. The OEM agreed to work with the alliance to create a development metalcasting facility, a plant where it could develop and test its new products, convert old products between processes, or simply upgrade old lines of parts.

Over the past half-century, Wolverine Bronze has continually altered its projected course, culminating with the completion of the research and development metalcasting facility in January 2009. And today, despite increasing concerns in the automotive industry, the one-time producer of tooling and fixtures is not only a nonferrous job shop, but also a member of a three-part alliance that is out to change the way the metalcasting industry operates.