The 5.4-liter supercharged aluminum V-8 in the '11 Shelby GT500 is 100 pounds lighter than it predecessor. Eight pounds of that comes from an absence of traditional cylinder liners. What do the Nissan GT-R and GT500 have in common? This.

The Nissan GT-R is a technological tour de force, and its wizardry begins at the most basic level: the cylinder liners in its twin-turbocharged aluminum V-6. Simply put, there aren't any. Here's the funny thing, though — the technology that Nissan uses to accomplish this feat was actually developed and patented by Ford.

The process in question is called plasma-transferred wire arc (PTWA). It basically involves blowing a fine mist of molten steel at high speed onto a rough surface and then honing that surface into a perfect cylinder bore. It's something that Matthew Zaluzec, Ford's manager of materials and nanotechnology, has been working on since 1991. As the concept was being refined, Ford brought in partners Flamespray and Honsel to finish the development work. The two firms were also responsible for manufacturing and marketing the twenty-five patents that resulted from the research.