The first
The 1992 McLaren F1 had a carbon fiber tub — the first road car to use the F1-derived monocoque design.
The American interpretation
The 2005 Ford GT used an aluminum spaceframe, not carbon — but the 2017 Ford GT built its tub from carbon fiber, designed from the start to win Le Mans GTE. Same principle: stiffer, lighter, safer than the aluminum it replaced.
Going mainstream
The BMW i3 (2014) put carbon fiber into a sub-$50k city car — the first time the tech reached anywhere near mass market. The Cadillac CT6 (2016) mixed carbon, aluminum and steel in body panels. Volume remains low because manufacturing carbon at high volumes is still slow and expensive.
The point
Carbon fiber tubs are 30 years old in racing and 33 years old in road cars. The reason your Camry doesn't have one is cycle time — a steel monocoque takes minutes to stamp; a carbon tub takes hours to autoclave-cure. Until that gap closes, carbon stays the preserve of supercars and halos.
