New Ideas

GOODS & SERVICES

New Newsprint. The Great Northern Paper Co., which produces 34% of the newsprint made in the U.S., announced that it has found a cheap way to make newsprint from hardwood, a trick no other papermaker has been able to perform. Up till now, newsprint has been made from softwood. Great Northern, which owns 14% of Maine's land, including 800,000 acres of hardwood, plans to spend $32 million to expand and to install the new process, boosting its present newsprint production of 377,000 tons a year to 555,000.

Zeprex. The U.S. Plywood Corp. has bought the National Brick Corp. to convert it to manufacture Zeprex, a porous building material that looks like concrete, and is almost as strong, but can be chopped, sawed, and nailed like wood. Composed of cement, water and chemicals, Zeprex is only one-fifth as heavy as concrete but is said to insulate ten times as well, can be used for making walls, ceilings and floors. Until U.S. production begins early next year, Zeprex will be imported from Sweden, where it was invented.

Moppet Motorcar. At the American Toy Fair in Manhattan, the Ideal Toy Corp. displayed a motorcar with a Fiberglas body for moppets. The car is 62 in. long, 30 in. wide, is powered by a six-volt battery and has a top speed of 5 m.p.h. Price: around $60.

Nash's Le Mans. To its Nash-Healey sports-car line, Nash Motors added a coupe, the Le Mans. Designed by Pinin Farina, it is low-slung (55 in. high) and racy, has a six-cylinder 140 h.p. engine (up from last year's 125 h.p.). Price: about $6,400.

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