How would you feel about driving a car made out of seaweed? It's not as strange as it sounds...
More than a century ago, Henry Ford made a pragmatic — yet arguably visionary — decision by ditching car body panels made of wood for ones made out of sheet metal. The move increased the speed of automobile construction exponentially, and eventually led to the mass-produced car. However, metal wasn’t the only material in Ford’s arsenal of experimentation.
Ford was actually dabbling with more exotic, less factory-friendlyconstruction materials, such as a soy-based plastic exterior that could survive the mighty swing of an ax blade. He ultimately...