Aurora (1957 automobile)
Encyclopedia
- See also the Oldsmobile AuroraOldsmobile AuroraThe Oldsmobile Aurora was a full-size sports sedan made by the Oldsmobile division of General Motors and launched in 1995. The Aurora rode on the same Cadillac-derived G platform as the 2-door Buick Riviera....
from the 1990s.
The Aurora was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
manufactured by Father Alfred A. Juliano, a Catholic priest, from 1957 to 1958. The Aurora is arguably the first Experimental Safety Vehicle
Experimental Safety Vehicle
Experimental Safety Vehicle is the designation for experimental concept cars which are used to test car safety ideas.In 1970 the U.S. DOT announced its ESV project, the aim of which was to obtain safer vehicles by 1980. : A car produced by this effort was known as the Minicar RSV.In 1991, the ESV...
ever made, even before the coinage of the ESV acronym. This safety car was to be available with a Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....
, Cadillac, or Lincoln
Lincoln (automobile)
Lincoln is an American luxury vehicle brand of the Ford Motor Company. Lincoln vehicles are sold mostly in North America.-History:The company was founded in August 1915 by Henry M. Leland, one of the founders of Cadillac . During World War I, he left Cadillac which was sold to General Motors...
engine, built on a Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
chassis
Chassis
A chassis consists of an internal framework that supports a man-made object. It is analogous to an animal's skeleton. An example of a chassis is the underpart of a motor vehicle, consisting of the frame with the wheels and machinery.- Vehicles :In the case of vehicles, the term chassis means the...
. However, the Aurora Motor Company of Branford, Connecticut
Branford, Connecticut
-Landmarks and attractions:Branford has six historic districts that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places . These include buildings in Federal, Arts and Crafts, and Queen Anne styles of architecture...
, partially funded by Juliano's congregation, went bankrupt after producing just one $30,000 prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
.
Juliano had studied art before entering the priesthood, and expressed a lifelong interest in automotive design
Automotive design
Automotive design is the profession involved in the development of the appearance, and to some extent the ergonomics, of motor vehicles or more specifically road vehicles. This most commonly refers to automobiles but also refers to motorcycles, trucks, buses, coaches, and vans...
. His family said that he had won a coveted scholarship from General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
to study with Harley Earl
Harley Earl
Harley J. Earl was first Vice President of Design at General Motors. He was an industrial designer and a pioneer of modern transportation design. A coachbuilder by trade, Earl pioneered the use of freeform sketching and hand sculpted clay models as design techniques...
, which arrived only after he had already been ordained. He maintained his interest in automotive design, however, which he combined with a belief that there was much which could be done to make current automobiles safer.
Conceived, invented and built by Juliano, the Aurora was an 18 feet (5.5 m) long fibreglass-bodied car that was two years on the drawing board and required three years to build. The high quality of the workmanship was "astounding", particularly in the fibreglass body and the plastic windows. At a retail price of $12,000.00, it would have been priced just under the most costly car in the U.S., the $13,000.00 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. The body, said to be dent
Dent
- People :Surname* Andrew Dent AM, Australian doctor and humanitarian worker* Bucky Dent, American baseball player* Charles Dent , multiple people with the name...
, rust
Rust
Rust is a general term for a series of iron oxides. In colloquial usage, the term is applied to red oxides, formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the presence of water or air moisture...
, and corrosion
Corrosion
Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...
proof, was specifically designed for long distance highway travel. The vehicle had a tinted, transparent, plastic "astrodome" roof with adjustable interior metal shades. Dashboard
Dashboard
A dashboard is a control panel placed in front of the driver of an automobile, housing instrumentation and controls for operation of the vehicle....
controlled hydraulic jacks mounted in the frame assisted in tire changing. The spare tire
Spare tire
A spare tire is an additional tire carried in a motor vehicle as a replacement for one that goes flat, a blowout, or other emergency...
, located under the front end, was mounted on a platform which would lower the tire to the ground without manual contact.
The car had many car safety
Car safety
Automobile safety is the study and practice of vehicle design, construction, and equipment to minimize the occurrence and consequences of automobile accidents. Automobile safety is the study and practice of vehicle design, construction, and equipment to minimize the occurrence and consequences of...
-related features, novel at the time, some now routine. These features included seatbelts, a roll cage
Roll cage
A roll cage is a specially constructed frame built in the cab of a vehicle to protect its occupants from being injured in an accident, particularly in the event of a roll-over. Roll cages are used in nearly all purpose-built racecars, and in most cars modified for racing...
, a padded instrument panel
Dashboard
A dashboard is a control panel placed in front of the driver of an automobile, housing instrumentation and controls for operation of the vehicle....
, side-impact bars, and a collapsible steering column. The placement of the spare tire under the front end served to absorb impacts
Crumple zone
The crumple zone is a structural feature mainly of automobiles. Crumple zones have also been incorporated into railcars in recent years.They are designed to absorb the energy from the impact during an accident by controlled deformation. This energy is much higher than is commonly recognized...
. The most innovative safety feature, which has not been incorporated into other cars, was the ability to swivel the seats to face rearwards should a collision seem imminent.
The Aurora is mainly remembered for its appearance, however, and is often cited in lists of the ugliest cars ever, frequently as the single ugliest car. This assessment is largely due to two factors, in addition to the general overwrought "swoopiness" of the car typical of the "futuristic" styling of the time: the gaping front end and the bulbous windshield
Windshield
The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and are glued...
, both dictated by safety considerations. The bulging windshield was designed to eliminate impact with occupants' heads, in the era prior to air bags, while the scoop-like front end served as a large, foam filled bumper, designed to scoop up not only air, but also pedestrian
Pedestrian
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...
s without injury.
The prototype had a fiberglass body over a largely wooden structure built on the salvaged chassis
Chassis
A chassis consists of an internal framework that supports a man-made object. It is analogous to an animal's skeleton. An example of a chassis is the underpart of a motor vehicle, consisting of the frame with the wheels and machinery.- Vehicles :In the case of vehicles, the term chassis means the...
of a 1953 Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
, which was not adequately tested before the scheduled public unveiling in 1957 and broke down 15 times on the way to the press conference, requiring towing to 7 different garages; mainly due to clogging of the fuel system
Fuel system
An aircraft fuel system allows the crew to store, manage, and deliver fuel to the propulsion system of an aircraft. Fuel systems differ greatly due to different performance of the aircraft in which they are installed...
, which had sat unused for the previous four years. After the inauspicious beginning of arriving hours late for its own unveiling, the car did not inspire the public due to its appearance, lack of performance, and high price, and there were no advance orders.
The company's finances were called into question; Juliano stated that that had been instigated by General Motors, and compared himself to Preston Tucker
Preston Tucker
Preston Thomas Tucker was an American automobile designer and entrepreneur.He is most remembered for his 1948 Tucker Sedan , an automobile which introduced many features that have since become widely used in modern cars...
. He was investigated by the IRS, accused by the Catholic Church of misappropriating parishioners' donations, and forced to leave the Order of the Holy Ghost
Order of the Holy Ghost
The order was responsible for running hospitals - Hospitals of the Holy Ghost - throughout Europe for centuries, and in its heyday the number of its houses ran into many hundreds...
. But in fact, he himself had gone deeply into personal debt financing the company, and eventually declared bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
, forfeiting the prototype to a repair shop
Automobile repair shop
An automobile repair shop is a place where automobiles are repaired by auto mechanics and electricians.- Types :The automotive garage can be divided in so many category....
as collateral for unpaid repair bills. It passed through several hands before finally being abandoned behind a Cheshire auto body shop in 1967. Juliano died of a brain hemorrhage in 1989.
In 1993, the car was discovered by British car enthusiast Andy Saunders of Poole
Poole
Poole is a large coastal town and seaport in the county of Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester, and Bournemouth adjoins Poole to the east. The Borough of Poole was made a unitary authority in 1997, gaining administrative independence from Dorset County Council...
, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, in a sketch in a book about dream cars; "It was so ugly it was unreal. I said straightaway, 'I've got to own that.'" After several years of searching, he eventually tracked the car down by the name of the garage in the background of a photograph of the car, purchased it sight unseen for $1,500, and had it shipped to Britain for another $2,000. The fiberglass and wood structure of the car proved to have deteriorated terribly from exposure, as well as the interior and plastic windshield. Restoration
Automotive Restoration
Automobile restoration is the process of repairing the degraded aspect of a car to return it to an overall "authentic" condition. To renovate a car without updating or upgrading it by keeping in line with how it would have appeared when first offered for sale...
was further complicated by a lack of adequate documentation or even photographs of the car, the absence of the late Father Juliano to assist as a consultant, and the lack of replacement parts for a prototype vehicle. However, restoration was completed in early 2005, and the car was unveiled to a newly re-astounded public at the Goodwood Festival of Speed
Goodwood Festival of Speed
The Goodwood Festival of Speed, commonly abbreviated as FoS and referred within the United Kingdom as simply the Festival of Speed, is an annual hill climb featuring historic motor racing vehicles that is held in the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, England.Typically held in late June or...
and is now on display in the Beaulieu Motor Museum.