Always wondered, why not make a car the same way as airplanes?

That’s correct. The Saab 91 was an airplane. But there’s a difference between ‘designed by aircraft engineers’ and ‘built using aircraft techniques’.

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No , the aircraft technology of the time was rivets. I don’t think the early Saabs were rivieed, but the used curved structural sheet metal like an airplane fuselage.

Back to the original question-

why not make a car the same way as airplanes?

Because they are completely different applications. Aside from the fact they already bond panels with adhesive, would you really want a car built like a plane? In my experience, planes do not handle “fender benders” very well and in a crash, not many people end up walking away. I think I’ll stick with the current method. :grin:

But this begs the question, what about other techniques? Building them like rockets to the moon would improve robustness but at what cost? I think if I had my druthers, I would choose similar construction to a tank. In fact, that reactive armor option would be awesome to have. Lightly tap my car and yours gets blown to smithereens while I have some minor smoke damage to the paint that we can buff out. Yep, gimme tank construction…

So this is meant to be humorous as well as addressing the original question. Car construction is pretty much kept up with available technologies and been a good balance of ROI for the intended application. Bonded panels are already being used but they don’t need rivets for either temporary holding or as a mechanical back up. BTW- I used some fancy epoxy not long ago that had a 5 minute working time. Was too fast for my abilities but that kind of thing is great for automotive construction among others…

I think @jtsanders summed it up early on in the discussion:

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I wouldn’t want a car built like an airplane if it was free.