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| Photo by Lenore Edman (Flickr: SB 206) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
In the 1960s, Wham-O was manufacturing more than 170,000 SuperBalls (those hard rubbery toy balls which have a high coefficient of restitution and which, as a result, bounce incredibly well) a year. Wham-O, as a publicity stunt, made an extra-large SuperBall the size of a bowling ball. One day, during an exhibition in Melbourne, Australia, the sphere fell out of a 23rd story window, hit the ground, bounced back up to the 15th floor, and finally crashed into a parked convertible on the 2nd trip down. The ball was unscathed, but the automobile was totally demolished.
The owner of the vehicle probably had difficulty explaining to his insurance company that his car was destroyed by a toy rubber ball.
You may recall that the SuperBall's other claim to fame is that it served as the inspiration for the name of the Super Bowl.
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