Henry Ford's 'plastic hemp car' from 1941

Henry Ford's 'plastic hemp car' from 1941 We might think that our ethanol and biodiesel “flex-fuel“ systems are all very cutting edge, but biofuel development is of course nothing new. Way back in the 1930's, Henry Ford was hard at work in the alt-fuels sector, and in 1941 he constructed a hemp-fueled and hemp-bodied prototype car. The “plastic“ body panels were composed of 70% cellulose fibers, including industrial hemp, mixed with a resin binder, and apparently they were pretty sturdy: check out this video, in which a guy beats on the trunk with an axe and fails to leave a mark. Industrial hemp won't make you high, kids, but its association with marijuana has historically been a major legal stumbling block. VIEW VIDEO OF FORDS HEMP CAR HAVING A HAMMER TAKEN TO IT !! The reason marijuana was prohibited in the 20th century was to suppress hemp fuel and fiber production, which is inexpensive to make and naturally decentralized, so that small groups of people could profit from the capital intensive petrochemic