Hightower Lowdown

To demonstrate the amazing body strength of a 1940 Ford, the founder himself, Henry Ford, took an axe and gave the trunk a solid whack. The trunk neither dented nor shattered. The car's body was made of a cellulose plastic formed from hemp and sisal. He also made cars powered by an alcohol fuel derived from hemp. It was a part of his vision to "grow automobiles from the soil." Along with Thomas Edison and George Washington Carver, Ford was part of a movement to use hemp and other agricultural crops as an industrial resource, rather than destroying the earth to get at fossil fuels and timber. He wrote: "I know from experience that many of the raw materials of industry, which are today stripped from the forests and mines, can be obtained from annual crops grown on the farms. . . . The best possible working plan for any man in our civilization is to have one foot on the soil and the other in industry."