The sleek Chevy Corvette C7 Stingray took the stage at North America’s glitziest auto show this week to show off its new look. Israeli cutting edge technology was used to make the 2014 version of this iconic sports car stronger, lighter and more superior in handling.

Plasan is a Kibbutz Sasa company better known for its very dense plastic composite product that affords ballistic protection without significantly adding to the weight of the vehicle. For years, the Pentagon has looked to Plasan to keep American soldiers safe in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a bid to win back some of the Corvette’s glory, General Motors turned to Plasan’s technology to reduce mass while increasing strength.

Plasan’s handprints can be found on C7’s front fenders, doors, rear quarter panels, and the rear hatch panel that were all made with the lighter-density sheet molding compound than the car’s previous generation.

“There are some new components with unusual shapes that required innovative mold tooling. We developed removable sections of the mold tools to attain detailed design shapes for fine character line definition in order to meet the stringent design studio requirements,” Gary Lownsdale, Chief Technology Officer of Plasan Carbon Composites, told AEI.

The new Corvette uses aluminum and carbon fiber to keep it lighter and faster, and it was also built to be more fuel efficient.