OCR Text |
Show THE FIRST PLASTIC AUTOMOBILE Henry Ford's first plastic automobile has been exhibited to the public, representing the result of i twelve years' research by a group of young scientists, ordered to find out about using "agricultural products pro-ducts in industry." Mounted on a tubular-welded steel frame, the car has a superstructure made of plastic, said to be superior to steel in everything but tensile strength. The plastic body, costing more than one of metal, weighs nearly 2,000 pounds, while a steel unit of comparable size weighs about 3,000 pounds. Mr. Ford is confident that plastic bodies can be produced by practical and economical means, with some savings as a result of fewer fabricating finishing finish-ing operations. The pliability of the plastic panel was tested by the auto maker who hit it with an axe. The plastic panel was unchanged after a blow but a similar experiment with a steel panel cut through the metal. Robert Boyer, young research chemist, who started the research which led to the plastic car, said that a million automobiles, with plastic bodies, would consume 100,000 bales of cotton, 500,000 bushels of wheat, 700,000 bushels of soybeans, and 500,000 bushels bush-els of corn. It may be a long road from the production of this "first plastic car" and the use of vast quantities of agricultural products in industry, and we would scarcely advise any farmer to increase in-crease acreage to provide the raw materials but, nevertheless, there is a possibility that the day will come when a new market will be opened |