Well, here's one I personally had never hear of, with unverified info from the 'net:
The Porsche 909
"All-aluminum chassis, titanium suspension, loom silver wiring in place of copper, and balsa wood ballast resistors for the ignition system. It had a nitrogen-pressurized titanium/rubber Kugeltank fuel cell, pressurized so that Porsche didn’t need to use a fuel pump!
Chrome plated beryllium was used for its brake disks and powered by a 275 horsepower Formula 1-derived flat-8 engine.
The car's weight?
850 pounds!
Porsche got the weight down to 763lb for the final version of the 909 hillclimber (according to Porsche 917 by Peter Morgan)
The body was paper thin as well. They must have spit gelcoat on crepe paper. In the museum they have a an unpainted body display held up by a few wires and you can put your hand behind the body and just about tell the time on your watch. The 909 was actually called a step too far by several engineers. It could only be used for a single season as the chassis was distorted and needed to be replaced. Porsche decided right away that they couldn't sell this car to privateers as they had with other models. It also created a lot of ill will towards Porsche by hill climbing organizations. Imagine NASA engineers showing up at an amateur model rocket competition?"
Mask to avoid toxic fumes coming off the brake disks?
