Jaguar XKE (Stirling Moss called it the the "dumb blonde of sports cars..."), AC Bristol/Shelby Cobra. Honda/Acura NSX. And Mercedes Benz used a lot of aluminum doors and hoods on their two-door sporty jobs. I helped paint one from the late 50s/early 60s once. Strength for wieght is about the same for aluminum and steel, you get about three times the volume for wieght with aluminum, so for some applications its better (airplanes) because the thickenss makes it stiffer. You could make a 747 out of stainless steel, but the skin would be so thin you'd have to add lots of extra stiffeners. But steel can be harder than aluminum, so can be made springy, or ductile, over a wider range. A physical chemist/metalurgist could tell us why. My family life was, er, colorful when I was a kid. At one point Dad claimed if the family land-barge that had replaced the 68 Bus got in one more collision, he was going to buy a Land Rover (aluminum body) and put a half a rail-road tie on each bumper, with tires hung off that like a boat dock.
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