1967 Bayer K67 - AllCarIndex

From official press release:

The frame is going out. This is one of the main conclusions drwan by automotive design engineers who have seen all-plastic prototype auto chassis to be introduced at the 1968 Design Engineering Show in Chicago (April 22-25) by Mobay Chemical Company in Pittsburgh.

Conceived and developed by Farbenfabriken Bayer AG, an international plastics and chemical manufacturer, the real significance of this design innovation goes far deeper than the first-glance impression might convey, according to B. R. Nason, Mobay president.

"The technique of combining various types of high-strength plastic sheeting materials with high-density rigid urethane fiam as the core section has a message for every field of product engineering where high strength-to-weight ratio, low tooling and production costs, assembly-line scheduling, and almost unlimited flexibility in materials and processing methods are essential or even desirable values", Mr. Nason said.

Actually, the use of engineering plastics by the auto industry is not a new idea, either in this country or abroad. All-plastic body shells have been in commercial production on stock model cars since teh early 1950's in this country; have popped up even earlier in Europe. But these early probes were essentially experiments in the straightforward substitutions of plasticc for metals in the conventional umbrella or canopy of the standard body shell.