Plastic & Plywood Concept Cars From The 1940's

The American public's interest in fuel ecnomony waxes and wanes, but there are always some people for whom it is a significant concern, even when everyone else wants big cars with big engines.  Take Alfred Raymond Russell for instance.  A post on the Hemmings blog tells at least part of the interesting story behind this progressive, if unorthodox, automotive designer and his plywood and plastic bodied cars with hydraulic drive.

In 1942, while the rest of the automotive world geared up for the production of war machines, and while every other backyard tinkerer spent his time dreaming up novel ways of defeating the Axis, Ray Russell set out to radically alter the fundamental design and makeup of the automobile.

“The new car is not a hundred-mile-an-hour, chrome-plated, gadget covered hearse,” he said in December 1942. “It’s a safe, practical car to take us to work at 35 miles an hour, using only a gallon of gas every 40 miles.”

Of course, with a war on and with chrome-plated, gadget-covered hearse production suspended, nobody seemed to really care.

The public's lack of interest did not stop him from trying, and he developed a few interesting designs along the way.