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Aurora Car
The Aurora car was a vehicle conceived, designed and manufactured
by Father Alfred Juliano, an eccentric Catholic priest, who spent
years pursuing his vision of improving road safety by producing
"safe cars". The end result, was an impractical and largely
odd-looking vehicle that incorporated safety features considered
integral in motoring today, but at the time were largely unheard
of.
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The Aurora was manufactured by the Aurora Motor Company
in Branford, Connecticut, a vehicle manufacturer partly
funded by the priest's congregation.
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Father Juliano brought himself and the company into bankruptcy
with the Aurora proving to be a huge flop, producing only one prototype
that cost the company $30,000 to build.
A full-scale launch of the Aurora prototype was planned in 1957
with a full media crew invited to attend. However, the unveiling
proved premature and the Aurora broke down 15 times on its way to
the showing, was towed to seven different garages, and got lampooned
both for its odd design and unreliable performance.
Planned to retail at $12,000, the Aurora car was supposed to be
the second most expensive vehicle at the time, next only to the
Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. The Aurora is sometimes featured in
lists of the ugliest cars ever produced, frequently singled out
as the ugliest one of all time.
The goofy yet inspiring story of its creation and its ultimate
demise have made the Aurora an extremely memorable vehicle and the
source of fascinating trivia.
Features
The one-of-a-kind prototype was built on a Buick Roadmaster chassis
and allowed room to fit either a Chrysler, Cadillac, or Lincoln
engine. It measured a massive 19 feet, stretching across a foam-padded
fiberglass body.
The Aurora featured safety provisions that were as unique at the
time as the man who made them. Among the features found in the uniquely-designed
vehicle were:
* seatbelts
* roll cage
* side-impact bars
* collapsible steering column
* padded instrument panels
* swiveling seats, designed to be able to turn 180-degrees rearwards
during an imminent collision to protect the driver and passengers
* front-end air scoop, intended to protect pedestrians during mishaps
* impact-absorbing foam-filled bumpers
* bulbous windshield placed several feet away from the driver
The fiberglass sat on a largely wooden structure. Because of its
fiberglass body, the Aurora was immune to ravages of dent, rust
and corrosion.
The Aurora was an extremely heavy car, with four frame-mounted
dash-controlled hydraulic jacks needed to change the wheels. The
spare tire was set on a platform designed to lower it without any
handling.
The Aurora Today
The Aurora car was most recently bought by British auto enthusiast
Andy Saunders who found it lying it in a field behind a bodyworks
shop in the same town it was built in, where it has sat for the
past 40 years.
Saunders paid $1500 for the Aurora and had it flown home to the
UK for restoration. It took12 years of Andy's spare time repairing
the damaged vehicle, whose wooden structure had been rendered completely
rotten. The interior was totally gone as well, among other deteriorated
parts.
All parts for the restoration of the Aurora have been completely
custom-built. Work was finished in 2005 and the Aurora car was subsequently
displayed at the Beaulieu Motor Museum.
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