Prototype Aurora Motor Company (1957) USA

L & rsquo; Aurora was designed and built by an American priest, Alfred A. Juliano, in 1957.

The company Aurora Motor Company, partly funded by the parish priest, went bankrupt and it n & rsquo; there was that & rsquo; one manufactured prototype. by Juliano, who had studied art, had always been fascinated by automotive design, he even got a scholarship to study General Motors Harley Earl, but then he had already been ordained a priest.. Juliano wanted to create the safest car in the world. L’Aurora, asked two years of design work and took him three years to construct.

The body was fiberglass and plastic glazing. The estimated retail price was 10.000 $, which placed 3.000 $ below the most expensive car that time : the Cadillac Eldorado coupe (sold 13.000 $). Specially designed for long trips on motorways, the car had some technical refinements, including a transparent tinted plastic roof, called “astrodome”… and hydraulic jacks controlled dashboard, that allowed to raise the car for maintenance or to change a wheel.