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Plastic body panels have been experimented with for decades. Ford developed a soybean car in the 1940s, and the 1960s Studebaker Familia proposal would have used an advanced fiberglass production process that would have allowed the company to sell the vehicle at a profit for as low as $1100. In the 1980s the Ponatic Fiero and first generation Saturn Corporation vehicles were produced using plastic panels. Despite having a variety of interesting features, such as low weight, good environmental and dent resistance, low cost, and the possibility of simplified design changes (done with aftermarket kits for the Fiero and planned but never used by Saturn), plastic panels have never caught on.
How might the technology have come to be more widely utilized, and what kind of impact might there be if the industry started switching over from steel to plastic for body panels? With the savings from using plastic for body panels, might advanced aluminum chassis be adopted for further savings? Would design changes be more frequent, perhaps with a much wider variety of designs be offered by manufacturers? What kind of impact might there be for repair shops and aftermarket/coachwork firms?