This sports convertible puts new significance to “high-performance” vehicle.
Developed from the chassis of a Mazda, the automobile is made from cannabis hemp, and is touted as potentially leading the charge in making carbon-neutral automobiles.
Bruce Michael Dietzen living in Florida, the mastermind behind the green device, hopes his environmentally friendly automobile will weed out the taboo behind the cannabis plant.
And with a body at least 10 times more dent-resistant than steel, the automobile wouldn’t require as much of a repair after any accident.
“The body of the car uses about 100 pounds of woven hemp,” stated Dietzen.
Constructing the vehicle was no pipe dream for Dietzen, who found motivation after hearing about famed industrialist Henry Ford using the long lasting material in 1941 to construct the world’s very first soybean-hemp automobile.
However obtaining the questionable material showed harder than he anticipated.
“I live in Florida, hemp is still unlawful to grow so I needed to import the woven material all the way from China since we still don’t have the facilities that can make hemp materials,” he stated.
It cost the former Dell exec $200,000 to develop the car, which works on a bio fuel made from recycled farming waste that is expected to have a much lower carbon footprint than conventional electric-powered automobiles.
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* Until the 1880s, in the USA, 80% of all textiles and fabrics used for clothing, tents, bed sheets, rugs, drapes, quilts, towels, diapers, etc., and even the flag, “Old Glory,” were principally made from hemp fibers. Additionally, hemp, due to its extreme durability and color-fastness, was used for 80% of all paper in the world, including Bibles, newspapers, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, etc.
* The paintings of Van Gogh, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, etc., were primarily painted on hemp canvas, as were practically all canvas paintings of that period.
* In one year alone (1935), 116 million pounds (58,000 tons*) of hempseed were used in America just for paint and varnish.
* Until 1937, in the USA, an estimated 80% of all rope, twine, and cordage was made from hemp.
* All American farmers were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic.
*** At the cusp of an impending Hemp renaissance, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 effectively made the cultivation of hemp illegal. This was due largely to the efforts of the following businessmen/entities:
Andrew Mellon: As chairman of the Mellon Bank he was Dupont’s primary investor and treasurer (1921-1932). He was also responsible for the appointment, in 1930, of his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, as head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN).
William Randolph Hearst: Competition from hemp was a threat to Hearst’s paper-manufacturing company and he believed that hemp’s renaissance would also significantly lower the value of his land —enormous timber acreage in both California and Mexico and best suited for conventional pulp. He used his publishing empire (28 newspapers in 18 key American cities with an estimated 20 million readers) to run stories claiming that marijuana was responsible for everything from murder to loose morality.
The DuPont family: In 1935, two years before the prohibitive hemp tax act, DuPont developed a new synthetic fiber (nylon) a direct competitor to hemp in the textile and cordage industries. DuPont was also in the process of patenting a new sulfuric acid process for producing wood-pulp paper. According to the company’s own records, wood-pulp products accounted for more than 80% of all DuPont’s railroad car loadings for the next 50 years.
For their billion dollar dynasties to remain intact, these unconscionable tycoons decided that hemp had to go. Taking an obscure Mexican slang word, “marihuana,” they vehemently tarnished the good image and phenomenal history of one of God’s most loving gifts to humanity. Undoubtably, one of their most effective tools was the use of Goebel-esque cinematography. Films like ‘Marihuana: Assassin of Youth’ (1935), ‘Marihuana The Devil’s Weed’ (1936), and ‘Reefer Madness’ (1936). These clever industrialists were able to swoon an unsuspecting American public into helping them completely kill off the competition.
“Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days : Hashish goads users to bloodlust.”
— Hearst newspapers, nationwide, circa 1936.
Hearst’s company slogan was: Truth, Justice, and Public Service!
Let’s put our foolish reefer-madness behind us; let’s make commercial hemp, once again, the greatest economic engine of the human race!