A man in Florida has crafted a beautiful sports car out of cannabis hemp, demonstrating the plant’s versatility as not just something that can heal the mind, body, and spirit, but that can also morph into a bright red convertible.
Okay, so the exact material in question doesn’t come from exactly the same plant as marijuana, but it does come from the same genus and species, Cannabis sativa, and it’s called hemp.
Hemp contains extremely long and strong fibers, and is therefore used as rope, cloth and other applications requiring lots of tensile strength. With this in mind, Florida-based Renew Sports Car company decided to put together a very Jaguar E-Type-esque car using woven cannabis hemp and a resin as the body shell.
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The formula is similar to the one used in the reinforced concrete holding up skyscrapers or even fiberglass and carbon fiber used on sports cars: take a material with a high tensile strength, and mix it with some sort of goopy glue that hardens and has high strength in compression. The composite material can then withstand loads in every direction.
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As Dietzen points out in the video above, this isn’t the first time hemp has been used in an automotive application. In 1941, Henry Ford used the stuff in his “plastic car,” though it’s worth noting, that hemp was not the primary or even secondary ingredient in the plastic.
Dietzen is convinced that woven hemp is the future, and while I think that’s a bit farfetched as long as reefer madness grips us all, I must say, I dig his Miata-based kit car.
h/t: CW33
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