Just The Unusual

[Barry]

Interesting for being unusual but not micro

[Big Al]

What a find! Totally nuts and fantastically ugpoo major it still has more going for it than some of the modern tin cans I see being sought as the next fashionable object by the cranially reduced credit fan.

[Jim Janecek]

a good write up on the "Sir Vival" Safety Car here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/automobiles/collectibles/23SAFE.html

If the link does not work, text of article here:

WHICH of the following gives a person the best chance of surviving a serious automobile crash?

A two-part body designed so that the front section absorbs most of the impact while isolating passengers, seated in a separate rear compartment, from the collision.

A “safety chamber” under the dashboard, surrounded by a steel bulkhead, that passengers dive into moments before a collision.

Seats that turn backwards to prepare occupants for an impact.

The question remains unanswered, because, fortunately, none of these crash-survival strategies ever made it to a mass-production model. But each was proposed over the years by inventors with their own ideas of how to advance auto safety — and prototypes with these well-meaning (but misguided) safety concepts still exist.

At a time when automakers try to woo customers by installing more air bags than their competitors, it may be hard to imagine the days before the unloved Lifeguard Design of the 1956 Ford, before Ralph Nader, three-point seat belts and antilock brakes. But safety has long been a selling point.

For instance, automakers recognized early on the value of drivers having a clear view of the road, but the wood framing of the first fully enclosed bodies was strong enough only when the roof supports were wide. In the 1920s, Willys-Overland adopted all-steel bodies, built by Budd, for strength and the snappier appearance of a painted finish. But the company also promoted the advantages of the thin corner pillars between the windshield and the door. The claim was exacting: “50 percent greater vision from the driver’s seat.”

When passenger compartments finally became fully enclosed, the windows were conventional plate glass, which offered wind protection but was easily shattered by rocks kicked up from unpaved roads. Laminated safety glass was available at the turn of the 20th century, but automakers resisted the extra cost.

By 1933, though, a Chevrolet sales brochure showed a New York Yankees pitcher, Lefty Gomez, hurling a baseball into a car’s windshield. The windshield shattered in a spider web pattern, but stopped the ball; the occupants were not harmed.

Structural advances continued through the ’30s as the conventional ladder frame gave way to unitized construction of the body shell. Chrysler’s Airflow series was an early adopter; to allay fears that the cars might not be sound, Chrysler rolled one off a cliff.

In the late 1950s, the inventors of the double-jointed Sir Vival car came up with the idea that occupants could be protected if the front of their car swiveled away or even broke off in a collision. Both parts of its two-section body were encircled by separate frames and cushioned by dodgem-car-type rubber bumpers.

Sales literature from the Massachusetts-based company asserted that the front section could “ride with the punch of a collision and absorb the shock of impact” while occupants in the rear section would be isolated from the crash. The Sir Vival also had a raised driver’s cabin with seat belts, a padded interior and built-in rollbars.

Preston Tucker was an automotive maverick who tried (and ultimately failed) in the late 1940s to produce a vehicle with many novel safety features, including impact-absorbing bumpers, a third-eye headlight designed to turn with the front wheels, windshield glass that popped out harmlessly on impact, and a “safety chamber” in the front floorboard area where occupants could dive to safety before a collision.

The Aurora may have the most unusual pedigree in the history of the industry. It was created in the mid-1950s by a Catholic priest, the Rev. Alfred A. Juliano, and partly financed by the parishioners of his Branford, Conn., church. Juliano wanted to create the world’s safest automobile, and his creation included innovations that were years ahead of their time.

Over a plywood substructure, Father Juliano fashioned a swoopy fiberglass body with a gaping cow-catcher nose intended to safely scoop up errant pedestrians and cradle them until the vehicle could stop. The odd bubble-shaped windshield had no wipers because, Father Juliano said, it was so aerodynamic that raindrops blew away. There were four seats, each mounted on a pedestal that could be rotated so, in case of an impending crash, they could be spun backwards, a position Juliano thought would be safer than facing forward.

Father Juliano declared bankruptcy after building only the prototype, but the car was restored a few years ago by a customizer in England.

Around the same time, Cornell University, with financing from the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, introduced the first of two safety cars it would build. The car, boasted Frank J. Crandell, chief engineer of the project, had dozens of safety innovations, some of them similar to features of the Aurora. The car is now at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

The second Cornell safety car, which is also in the collection of the Henry Ford, was built on a modified 1960 Chevrolet sedan chassis. It had body-hugging “capsule seats” with head restraints to prevent neck injuries in a rear impact; lap and shoulder belts; and a bumper-car-style rubber cushion around the entire perimeter of the car. Its mirrors were “hemispherically shaped” to reduce pedestrian injuries.

Malcolm Bricklin, the entrepreneur who brought Subaru and Yugo to the United States, tried to focus on safety with his SV-1 (for Safety Vehicle One), which in 1974 actually made it to production. The Bricklin offered worthwhile ideas like bumpers that could withstand a 5-mile-an-hour impact, side door beams and an integrated roll cage.

It was available in a selection of brilliant exterior colors, deemed safer by Mr. Bricklin because they were more likely to be noticed by other drivers. Unfortunately, they were not more noticeable to potential buyers; the car was discontinued after fewer than 3,000 were produced.

[marcus]

Fantastic!

[Barry]

Another interesting one.

Off-topic because it might not fit in the microcar category.

[marcus]

Fantastic! Literally!

Re-reading the write up which Jim posted reminded me of the old Tex Avery cartoon The Car of Tomorrow, which can be seen on You Tube, all sorts of wacky and wonderful ideas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bBpDNRP5qQ

[Big Al]

Another interesting one.

Off-topic because it might not fit in the microcar category.

The Siva Suluki of the MIcrocar World. Baby Faced Finnleyson will be jealous.

[Rusty Chrome (Malcolm Parker)]

Another interesting one.

Off-topic because it might not fit in the microcar category.

That's a Paul Arzens design with a 125cc engine. More here:-

http://designethistoires.lecolededesign.com/2010/11/mais-ou-est-donc-le-moteur-la-3233-wo-projet-de-voiture-de-paul-arzens-1951/

[Rusty Chrome (Malcolm Parker)]

Forgot the picture