With advancing technical insight, we have become increasingly better able to apply new materials over the years. Nevertheless, many modern materials have their roots in the past, which means that we do not rely solely on metal for the body.
Eight years ago we got to know the first volume model with a carbon fiber reinforced plastic body: the electric BMW i3. Incidentally, this is not a self-supporting carriage, the car has an aluminum chassis, but this aside. The production of this carbon construction in large quantities is not simple and cheap; the primary idea behind the use of plastic is to save weight, it is light and at the same time very strong. These are also the reasons in 1992 when the carbon fibers were used for the first time for the self-supporting body of the F1, the three-seater super sports car from McLaren. Incidentally, this is the same McLaren that had the scoop in Formula 1 eleven years earlier with a chassis (the MP4 / 1) made of the same material.
Out of poverty
If you can only make limited use of steel, alternatives are also desirable. Look at the Trabant, for example, with its Duroplast ‘sheet metal’ made of cotton fibers and synthetic resin, because there is not exactly a steel surplus in the GDR. In East Germany it is not in the ground and they did not get it from the friendly Soviets. Hence. And now that we are in Germany. Shortly before the Second World War, circumstances also saw a potential shortage of steel there, which meant that a plastic body was also taken into account in the planning for the Volkswagen Beetle. Type numbers 60K11 and 60K12 are reserved for a plastic KdF car, the first made up of separate components, the second with a one-piece body. They have never been built.
One of the Glaspar partners brings his knowledge from the polyester catamaran business. The body of the Alembic (as the model is called) is screwed onto a modified Willy’s Jeep chassis and fitted with a V8.
Barring a single hobby project, it will take until 1950 before cars with a plastic body are built. In various places in America, on a very modest scale (mostly open) polyester bodies are screwed onto existing or modified undercarriages, resulting in cars such as the Glasspar G2, the Kaiser-Darin and the Woodill Wildfire. This concerns minimal numbers, sometimes even only kits that can be mounted on, for example, chassis of MG’s TC and TD or Triumphs TR2. The simplicity of these types of cars and the popularity of light sports cars (mostly of English origin, taken by soldiers returning after the Second World War) also put General Motors on the trail. The result is perhaps one of the most popular plastic cars ever: the Corvette. Finally, the polyester car is a volume product, you can say a blockbuster.
Although sales got off to a slow start, General Motors managed to pull the plastic bodywork out of the hobby atmosphere from 1953 with the Corvette.
The Corvette, presented in 1953, not only manages to make the public greedy, it also inspires the Volvo management, for example. The Swedes also want such a car. Glasspar is filing a request to develop and produce a fiberglass-reinforced polyester body, which is then screwed onto a Volvo undercarriage in Sweden. We know that car as the P1900, of which just under seventy were built in 1956 and 1957. Also in 1956, Saab presents its plastic sports car Sonet. The relatively simple, light and inexpensive plastic construction will eventually find use all over the world.
This story previously appeared in Techzle Classics, number 1 of 2014 and slightly adjusted for current events.