Abstract: A lightweight shipping container includes two parallel side walls each having a top rail and secured on the opposite side to bottom rails of a floor frame, both bottom rails being coupled to one another by a floor, which is secured to and resting on a multiplicity of cross-beam members of the floor frame. A front end assembly is secured to one end of the top and bottom side rails and a door end assembly opposite the front end assembly is secured to an opposite end of the top and bottom side rails. The container further includes a roof secured to respective ones of the top rails of each of the two side walls. The floor includes a metallic cellular sandwich panel formed by a frame defining an interior portion of the panel and including a metallic cellular core of a multiplicity of metallic polygonal cells, and a skin covering both the frame and the metallic cellular core.