Abstract: A pre-pregnated composite vehicle bumper, which may have an integral or complementary grill guard, comprises an outer gel coat; a pre-pregnated composite material skin; and an internal two-part foam. The parts are typically created in a mold according to a process which includes closing and sealing an opened mold shell to define the volume of the shape of the bumper and the grill guard and then controllably increasing temperature of the closed and sealed mold shell until a predetermined temperature is reached, maintaining the predetermined temperature by controlling the predetermined temperature to be at a substantially steady state for a predetermined period of curing time, and then controllably decreasing the temperature of the closed and sealed mold shell until a predetermined temperature is obtained using a thermal control mold that incorporates both heating and cooling.