Tuesday 13th January 1942

Henry Ford was granted the first US patent for construction of a plastic car. The Soybean (or ‘Hemp body’, as it was also known) was the first car to have a body entirely made of plastic. It was 30 per cent lighter than a regular metal car and the panels were said to be only a quarter of an inch (6 mm) thick. Because of World War II all US automobile production was curtailed considerably, and the plastic car experiment basically came to a halt and the prototype car was destroyed.