AUTOS: Plastic Ford Unveiled

The first plastic car was shown by Henry Ford in Dearborn last week. It was the product of his own long dream—that industry should use more farm crops—and of the chemical inventiveness of his protege, 32-year-old Robert Allen Boyer (TIME, Nov. 11). His plastic, 70% cellulose with a resin binder, is made of soybeans, wheat, cotton, hides, plus a few imported, now hard-to-get ingredients (cork, rubber, tung oil, ramie—formerly used to wrap Egyptian mummies). Last fall Boyer turned out a few panels, had his lanky boss whang at them harmlessly with an ax, was overjoyed when Ford gave him...