Ochroma 5th and 6th generations of the Chevrolet Corvette had floor pans composed of balsa sandwiched between sheets of carbon fiber reinforced plastic. Norwegian scientist and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, convinced that early contact between the peoples of South America and Polynesia was possible, built the raft "Kon Tiki" from balsa logs, and upon it he and his crew sailed the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Polynesian Tuamotu Archipelago in 1947. However, the Kon Tiki logs were not seasoned and owed much of their (rather slight) buoyancy to the fact that their sap was of lower density than seawater. This serendipitously
Thor Heyerdahl their speech. Heyerdahl claimed that in Incan legend there was a sun-god named Con-Tici Viracocha who was the supreme head of the mythical fair-skinned people in Peru. The original name for Viracocha was "Kon-Tiki" or "Illa-Tiki", which means "Sun-Tiki" or "Fire-Tiki". Kon-Tiki was high priest and sun-king of these legendary "white men" who left enormous ruins on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The legend continues with the mysterious bearded white men being attacked by a chief named Cari, who came from the Coquimbo Valley. They had a battle on an island in Lake Titicaca, and the fair race was massacred.