Car Tech: What are the pros and cons of plastic cars?

(NT) Qualtiy, Not Material...

ROLL CAGE

Um, I have a feeling plastic cars would be sturdier because they would have full roll cages rather than just a unibody eggshell protecting the passengers.

In an accident, high end unibody cars don't crush in the passenger compartment even a tiny bit.

Low-end unibody cars crush the passenger compartemnt all over.

Even a cheap plastic car with an industry standard roll cage will probably save your ass better than a tin-can unibody.

Sure, it's not the same as an SUV. It will likely be just about as good if not better, though.

Say you roll on the roof. Okay, you have half the curb weight resting on twice as strong of a roof. Remember these are not the plastics your kids play with but real, thick, high-quality plastics.

Anyway... I think most people see this idea and think of it as rolling around town in their kids' "Power Wheels".

NO! Not even close...

Corvettes are not plastic

Corvettes have never been made out of plastic. They are made out of fiberglass, which is a totally different thing. Plastic is flexible, not brittle.

fiberglass

up until the late 70's the vette was still a fiberglass product. which is a polyester based resin reinforced with spun glass fibers. when the bodies changed in early 80's the went to a product called SMC (sheet moulded compound). new replacement panels for the older models are now made out of smc.
smc was really cool! it looked like a packed down furnace filter with an oily feel because of the resin which was already in it. the only size limit they had was because of the width of the mill used to produce the raw product. instead of adding a hardner to the resin, like in all polyester based systems, what was in SMC could be heat cured. one is exothermic and the other endothermic, in other words one produced heat during the cure and the other required the application of heat to cure. under heat and pressure they could form just about anything and the dies hardly ever needed maintainance unlike the dies used to stamp steel panels.

fiberglass??

if you are correct, why did GM send me to the tech center to be trained and certified in repairing the Corvette SMC panels???? starting with the body change in,i think, 1986 ALL CORVETTES WERE MADE WITH SMC PANELS!! all NOS panels for older models were also shifted to SMC. i still have my training manuals and certificates from all of my training at the GM tech center in Warren Mi. and Cleveland Oh. so unless you have some top-secret memo that they forgot to give me.......
take a sander to it, go down the the bare SMC and wipe it with a damp rag. it will be dark grey with a swirly pattern to it = SMC.
a brownish/grey color and you can see the full pattern of the fibers = polyester based fiberglass.
steven, i know these forums are a good to express ourselves but you shouldn't make blanket statements like you did. i could teach you a lot but you are going about it the wrong way. ask me how i know something or ask me if i'm positive about it but don't call me a liar!

Try Google before posting

Fiberglas-bodied Vettes have been consigned as a thing of the past (thankfully) with the last three generations of Corvettes.

As for plastics: as the technology stands now, I'll personally stay away from them in any of my future cars, particularly in the areas subjected to structural and severe impact loads. I recall some very vivid and catastrophic accidents in F1 where certain teams switched from titanium and other aluminum alloy structural members to carbon fiber and/or Kevlar. Accidents that invariably happened in the course of racing that occurred after the change were much more dramatic and injurious to the drivers.

The current state of technology with polymer-type structural members just isn't up to the toughness of metals; polymer-based materials more often than not literally shatter and explode upon impact rather than deform and absorb the collision energy like metals do. The same likely goes for long-term fatigue of materials as well. Moreover, subject polymers to engine and exhaust heat and environmental exposure such as UV...sure recipe for degradation and failure.