The fact that modern vehicles are filled with recycled materials is nothing new. But the idea of a car made entirely from renewable resources existed 84 years ago will probably come as a surprise to many. And with that, we go back to 1941. The year Henry Ford introduced his hemp car.
There are conflicting accounts of the vehicle's name, with the term "Soybean Car" being more common. What the body of Ford's green car was made of will likely remain a mystery. There are no documents left about its exact composition. The vehicle itself has not survived.
What is clear is that it is a tubular steel chassis, on which are mounted 14 six-millimeter-thick panels of (probably) a mixture of natural fibers. A 1941 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine lists a mixture of flax, wheat, hemp, and wood pulp. Lowell E. Overly, who participated in the construction of the vehicle, explained that only soybean fibers in a phenolic resin with formaldehyde were used for impregnation.
The use of renewable raw materials was a response to the shortage of metals at the time. A significant side effect of using natural fibers was also a significant weight saving. The car was supposed to weigh only 860 kilograms, which is a good 300 kilograms less than a car of the time with a classic body. Henry Ford designed this car as a symbol of sustainability. He was convinced that hemp and soy plastic would make the body safer and more elastic than conventional metal. In addition, he wanted to combine agriculture and industry.
The model was publicly displayed at the Dearborn Days Festival (Michigan) and the Michigan State Fair Grounds in 1941. There is a film from that year that ends with images of Henry Ford hitting the trunk with an axe or hammer to demonstrate the stability of the material. However, he did not hit the soybean car, but his own car, which had a plastic panel made of the same material on the trunk. In addition, a rubber cap was placed on the axe or hammer.
World War II caused a drastic decline in civilian car production, and Ford's experiment came to a halt. After the war, the idea fell into oblivion. Henry Ford died in 1947, and the ban on hemp cultivation in the United States in 1955 would have nipped any serious efforts at mass production in the bud anyway.
