Birmabright is a trade name of the former Birmetals Co. (Birmabright works in Clapgate Lane, Quinton, Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

) for various types of lightweight sheet metal in an alloy

Alloy

An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...

 of aluminium

Aluminium

Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....

 and magnesium

Magnesium

Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...

. The constituents are 7% magnesium, sometimes 1% manganese

Manganese

Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...

, and the remainder aluminium. The BB2 is one example, of which equivalent specifications are British standard NS4, American 5251 and ISO designation AlMg2.

Gas welding of Birmabright is easier than that of pure aluminium and may be carried out using scraps of the same material as a filler rod.

Birmabright is best known as the material used in the body of the Land Rover

Land Rover

Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...

 and other classic British vehicles. The doors, boot lid and bonnet of most Rover P4

Rover P4

The Rover P4 series was a group of saloon automobiles produced from 1949 through to 1964 designed by Gordon Bashford. The P4 designation is factory terminology for the group of cars and was not in day-to-day use by ordinary owners, who would have said simply that they had a "Rover 90" and so on.The...

 models were also Birmabright, however towards the end of production this was changed to steel to reduce costs. An early use in the 1930s was for the bodywork of the land speed record

Land speed record

The land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a wheeled vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C flying start regulations are used, officiated by regional or national organizations under the auspices of the Fédération...

 car, Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt (car)

Thunderbold is a British Land Speed Record holder of the 1930s, driven by Captain George E.T. Eyston- Records held :Between 1937 and 1939, the competition for the Land Speed Record was between two Englishmen: Captain Eyston and John Cobb. Thunderbolt's first record was set at on 19 November 1937...

. Also used for the bodywork of Bluebird K7

Bluebird K7

Bluebird K7 was a turbo jet-engined hydroplane with which the United Kingdom's Donald Campbell set seven world water speed records during the 1950s and 1960s. Campbell lost his life in K7 on January 4, 1967 whilst making a bid to raise the speed record to over on Coniston Water.-Design:Donald...

used for the Coniston speed record attempt by the late Donald Campbell