Just before the beginning of WWII, the de Havilland aircraft company proposed to the Air Ministry that they build a bomber that was so fast it would not need any defensive armament. The Ministry turned it down, believing the idea to be impossible, but de Havilland went ahead and built the plane anyway - almost entirely out of wood!

The result was the Mosquito, a plane that exceeded all of its intended limits and went on to be one of the best aircraft of the war. It was so fast and light that it was used in all sorts of roles - all because of the strength and light weight of the wood it was built from. The lesson must surely be: don’t knock wood!

And it seems the same applies in car design. A furniture maker with the unlikely name of Friend Wood has built a three wheeled car with a wooden body. Using mechanicals and 602cc engine from a Citroen 2CV, the car has a top speed of over 100 mph and returns a fuel consumption of between 55 and 70 mpg. That’s not bad by any standards.

The car has been named the Tryane II and, although the body makes no secret of its wooden construction, it is well streamlined and quite pretty. Mind you, I’m not sure how it would fare in an accident - imagine all those splinters flying about…