Abstract: Vanadium microalloyed steel forgings provide lightweight,high performance and cost effective solutions for many critical automotive components in the drivetrain and chassis of modern cars and trucks.These high strength steel forgings are already widely used in regions with developed automotive industries such as Europe,Japan and North America,and they play an important role in new vehicle designs required to meet increasingly stringent weight and emission targets.Developing countries and regions will also present a significant opportunity for adoption of this technology as indigenous automotive production expands and the best engineering solutions are applied.The majority of these forgings are produced from medium carbon steels with small additions of vanadium to provide substantial precipitation strengthening of the controlled cooled ferrite-pearlite microstructure.The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to the essential aspects of this important technology by providing an overview of the historical development,basic metallurgy,processing,properties and typical applications.