The main developing trend of automobile industry is promoting performance, lowering fuel consumption, reducing hazard gas emission and promising safety of driving. The automobile lightweight technology has attracted more and more attention recently. Furthermore, auto-body lightweight is very important to automobile lightweight, and new material has become an important technical support for auto-body lightweight. In this paper, the currently used materials in automotive industry were reviewed, and the focus has been put on the application of new lightweight materials in auto-body and the trend of development.