Topic: First plastic car body in bigger numbers came from France in 1926?

[grobmotorix]

I´ve found an advertisement in a french 1926 magazine that leaves some questions open.

My french is minimal, so maybe some of our french or franco-canadian autopuzzlers may be able to help me with it:

may "fibro-liege" (Light fibres?) be kind of a Duroplast, a form of plastic containing resin strengthened by wool or cotton fibres like the Trabant did use some decades later, too?

The only piece of text I´ve found that might be in relation to it said that a french company called Nagal had used the so called "Fregoli"-system for some 1920´s Fords

It would be great if someone could tell me something reliable about Nagal or Fregoli...

[woodinsight]

'fibro-liege' is indeed 'light fibre'
I don't know the companies involved but I'll keep my eyes open as I trawl through my French language archives

[grobmotorix]

Thank you!

[pnegyesi]

Well, Automobile Quarterly featured a detailed history of plastics in cars in Vol10, No2 (1972 Spring). I can't promise that I'll be able to look at it this week, but maybe in January

[grobmotorix]

I am definitly looking forward to any new information.

[pnegyesi]

The AQ article doesn't provide too much new info. "As early as 1929, scientists for Germany's huge Bayer chemical complex and Daimler-Benz were investigating the possibility of molding fenders, rear decks and body panels out of phenolic resins. A few prototype whicles seems to have been so outfitted but the project never went further"

[DynaMike]

"Fibro-liège" rather means cork-fibre, I'd say 'Light' would have been 'léger' or 'légère'.

[woodinsight]

Of course you are correct DynaMike - time to brush up on my French again I think!

[grobmotorix]

CORK I do not think that cork has any fibres that could be extracted.

In my imagination this car body must have bounced back and forth every time you have accelerated or used the brake a little bit harder...

Cork as it comes from the cork oak trees is a very weak and flexible material.
It must have been the basis for some kind of compound material in combination with resin or anything like that...

I hope we will get some more input here.

[pnegyesi]

My next idea is to get the missing issues of the 1990s Automobiles Classiques. Some time between 1994-1996 it featured a complete series on French coachubilders. I have have a few issues, but will get the others next year

[Allemano]

Cork cut mean that it was used as a fill component like wood in
Bakelite for instance. Bakelite is an early kind of Semi-Plastic Duroplast as it contains natural materials like cellulose, wood or fabric, too.
So, I guess it must be something like that only distributed by the NAGAL trademark.