The paper aims to illustrate three advantages of infrared thermography as a non-destructive, real-time and non-contact technique. It permits observation of the macrostructural aspects of thermoplasticity describing damage and failure processes in metals, and in particular, automotive components subjected to fatigue loading; detection of the occurrence of intrinsic dissipation; and evaluation of the fatigue strength in a very short time compared to traditional fatigue testing techniques. In addition, infrared thermography readily describes the damage location and the evolution of structural failure.