Dallara would also look to carry over as many ideas and parts as possible from the DW12.

“If we designed the car with the same concept as the Indy car, we would see less new components than the previous car. You would also save weight, improve performance and the mileage for parts. It’s a learning car, so we need to make it simple so it doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, but being a training car, you don’t go crazy trying to find Formula One parts for performance.

“What you want to see is a chassis that’s safe, but has the latest features of IndyCar: paddle-shift, the Zylon (anti-intrusion side) panels, the ability to easily convert between road course and oval and a simple way to work on it.”

According to dePonti, all of Dallara’s monocoques will continue to be produced at its base in Parma, Italy, while an increasing number of the bolt-on components for the DW12 will be manufactured in Indiana, as would its proposed Lights car.

Dallara's rendering of the 2014 Lights car in action. (Photo: Dallara)

“Here, we also have an autoclave for body parts and components,” he said. “For the structural parts, we’re not mature enough to build a monocoque here. We’re one-year-old here in Speedway, and have improved our production capabilities; we do IndyCar components here now, for example.

"Obviously, we will do a lot of [Lights] parts here in Indiana, and would be a ‘Made in the USA’ car. And some parts will be commercial that we buy somewhere else. The concept to have a factory here is to increase the production and stay for as many years as possible.”

If the rumored American Formula One feeder series comes to fruition, Dallara would be a likely candidate to supply the cars, but dePonti clearly favors a single top-tier ladder series that prepares drivers for a certain 500-mile race held each May.

“Formula One came into the U.S. and was a big success; it remembered America, and all of a sudden, there’s a big rumor there’s going to be a GP2 or GP3 championship here as a potential market for Formula One,” he said.

“They try to get drivers and sponsors for this. It’s very important to push and give Indy Lights the real value—to teach drivers and engineers to go and race at the Indy 500. NASCAR has its ladder to teach its drivers, and we need to make Indy Lights a better value—more valuable—from a cost perspective to give Americans and Europeans an easy choice to come race Indy Lights and become IndyCar drivers.”

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Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, and covers the IndyCar Series. Before joining SPEED, Pruett worked in open-wheel racing for 20 years as a mechanic and engineer. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.