Are there any plastic cars?
Discussion
OK, my 15 Yr old niece asked the question: Are their any plastic cars? So I asked her to elaborate on this as obviously plastic is used extensively in modern cars. So the question really extends to how much plastic is used in the body and chassis as obviously it can't be in mechanical components. So her question is, are there any cars cars made from a 100% plastic body?
Some of the American 'Saturn' brand of motorcars of the late 20th century made a feature of having plastic panels that were more dent resistant than traditional metal ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_S_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_S_series
Truckosaurus said:
Some of the American 'Saturn' brand of motorcars of the late 20th century made a feature of having plastic panels that were more dent resistant than traditional metal ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_S_series
Plenty of cars have at least some plastic panels (most have plastic bumpers, of course) - the Citroen BX was notable back in its day for having a plastic bonnet and tailgate, for example - but the main unibody structure remains metal.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_S_series
There are lots and lots of fibre reinforced plastic (carbon or glassfibe) monocoques where the FRP forms the actual chassis structure too - everything from the Type 14 Lotus Elite and Rochdale Olympic, through many GRP kit cars (GTM, Midas, Davrian, Pelland, Clan, etc., etc.) to modern production cars like the Alfa 4C), but I'm not aware of any that used unreinforced plastic for the monocoque, for the simple reason that it's not usually stiff enough.
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