Henry Ford's Hemp Car

In 1941, the public saw a new type of car developed under the dreams of the industrial giant Henry Ford. With help from several people, including American prodigy George Washington Carver, Ford had succeeded in making a car that was much lighter than a normal car and would be great for many reasons. Unless you had a vested interest in the oil industry, you would be happy with this achievement.

There is no known prototype of the car, reportedly having been destroyed after the project was abandoned. One thing that is certain is that Ford had a suit made from soybeans. He is photographed in it on at least one occasion in celebration of his 78th birthday.

A brief video of the car can be found online here. (Apologies if you cannot directly link to the video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkohqOBRbdM

An ax is used to hit the back of a car but it is not believed to be the model spoken of here. It is thought that the back of the car being hit is made of the same type plastic used in the Ford Hemp Mobile.

There is also uncertainty that only one type of oil was used in the making of the body. Some have asserted it was a combination of several oils, including wheat, soy and hemp while other sources say the plastic body was not derived from recently deceased plant life. In any case, depending on your source, the car weighed from 25 to 33% less than steel cars of that time.

This was helpful for many reasons. It used less material. Steel was being rationed as the US started war preparations. Plastic was safer than steel in an accident. The fuel economy was much better. By using vegetable oils, no doubt agriculture would benefit financially from producing a product guaranteed to be used by industry.

Further, the motor was able to use different types of oils. Some have said soybean oil was used, while others say the motor was designed to work with hemp oil. Several types of oils could easily be adapted to a motor.

In fact, Dr. Rudolf Diesel had started developing his famous Diesel engine back in the 1880s. Originally intended to run on peanut oil or other type oils, it was for the benefit of the small operators and peasants. It was much more efficient than the steam engine which was the option for big business but out of the price range of small operators. Dr. Diesel's idea was to help the little man compete with industry. Dr. Diesel died under mysterious circumstances during an overnight boat trip in 1913.

World War Two ended and the Ford Hemp Car was abandoned. Now that industry could gear all of its power to civilian manufacture, consumerism was being pushed and promoted with much vigor. Appliances and doing away with public transport were the new things, to force people into buying cars. Big oil was not to be rationed, but to be pumped into all these new cars that people would be compelled to buy since the demise of passenger railways was in the works.

Ford was a big advocate of bio-fuels. When World War Two started, Ford was not a young man, having been born in 1863. He died in April of 1947. His passion for alcohol fuel was not shared by the big oil companies nor by the media who helped promote gratuitous consumerism and designed obsolescence.

Henry Ford was not perfect, but he never used his power to destroy the hemp industry in favor of petro-chemicals or wood timber. Henry Ford had the interests of the people in his heart. The same cannot be said for his opponents or most employers of today.

We owe a lot of thanks to people like Henry Ford, Rudolf Diesel, George Washington Carver and others who are nameless but nonetheless better people who put everything they had into their work to make a better tomorrow for you and me.