1957 Aurora Prototype
One of our local car clubs recently had a driving tour to visit the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville TN. If you are ever near Nashville of course you have to visit “Music City” with all it has to offer. Make sure you include on your long list of things to do in Nashville, the Lane Motor Museum. It has the most unusual and interesting cars you will ever see anywhere in one place. Its inventory on display is ever changing and a visit to its “vault” in the basement is a must to add to your visit. Our latest trip was highlighted with a very unique car, the 1957 Aurora. No its not that Aurora by Oldsmobile!
This Aurora was the brain child of Father Alfred Juliano who wanted to build the safest car in America. In the mid-1950’s he set out to construct his dream. It is a fully fiberglass bodied automobile with some of the most advanced safety features most of which would not be found on American production cars for decades. Juliano introduced the car to the public in 1957 but due to some bad luck and poor press the car never made it into production.
Juliano drove the car for its introduction to the automotive press. Unfortunately, due to production fiberglass dust contaminating the fuel lines, he had a breakdown and was four hours late! As you can imagine the press was not in a good mood after four hours standing around with no car to review. As a result their write ups focused more on the disastorous trip to the unveiling than the car’s design and futureistic safety features. The future of the Aurora was over.
Among the saftey innovations of the Aurora were seat belts, a collapsible steering column, puncture-proof tires, side impact protection systems, padded dash and a structural cage around the vehicle! All of these would eventually find there way into mainstream automobiles. The drivetrain is a Buick water cooled 264 cu. in. V8 putting out 145 HP. This was connected to an automatice transmission. Construction cost is estimated at $300,000. That was huge money in 1957!
Although the Aurora is extremely advanced in design and concept I can’t say that I find it attractive. For 1957 it is much like a car you would expect to see at a major custom car show or possibly, even a Big Three Concept Car. However, it is just a little too weird for my taste. If you filled in the wheel well openings it could be a cartoon “Jetson’s” car of the future.
