Meet Aurora, the Ugliest and Safest Car in the World

Not all good things are necessarily good-looking or, for that matter, successful. Before safety vehicles were even a thing, one priest from Pennsylvania worked hard to build what he believed would be the safest car in the world. And he did just that. It’s also quite possibly the single most ugly vehicle ever built.

Father Alfred Juliano, a Catholic Priest, conceived and built Aurora. Juliano, was concerned not only with the eternal souls of his parishioners but also with their safety. He developing and sketching blueprints for automobiles and aircraft at the age of 13, and he was so brilliant at it that he caught the attention of General Motors executives, who offered him a spot in a school for creative young designers.

Father Juliano declined the invitation since he had already been ordained as a priest. But his passion for automobile design persisted. He spent two years designing the Aurora and another three years building it. Father Juliano founded the Aurora Motor Company with donations from his parishioners, as well as credit and his personal cash, to create the prototype.

Aurora was designed to be dent, rust, and corrosion resistant. Seat belts, a roll cage, shock-absorbing body contour bumpers, a cushioned dashboard, crumple zones, and event of a collision, protecting the occupants. In less gruesome settings, the seat configuration was ideal for a relaxed chat with a little table between them. broke down 15 times on the route to its public introduction in 1957. The prototype ended up costing him $30,000, but not a single order for the vehicle was placed. The company went into bankruptcy and its founder was investigated for fraud, following claims of having misappropriated church money. After Father Juliano gave it up as collateral for delinquent payments, it was abandoned at an auto body shop. Andy Saunders, a British automotive artist discovered it in a field in 1993. It was in horrible state, yet he sent to the UK to begin the reconstruction procedure. He said that the Aurora had enchanted him with its ugliness, therefore he had to have it. a telescoping steering wheel were among the safety features. The windscreen was bulbous to increase space between it and the occupants in the event of a crash. The front seats swivelled backwards in the

The Aurora's exterior was equally impressive and wellthought-out, with no sharp edges to a gaping area in the front end designed to "cuddle" and shield a pedestrian it could hit. As groundbreaking as these elements were, combining them all into one vehicle resulted in the world's ugliest automobile.

The prototype, and the only Aurora ever built, was constructed on the chassis of a 1953 Buick that Father Juliano rescued but failed to test beforehand. This would lead to his demise since the automobile

Aurora made a triumphant return to the spotlight in 2004, as part of the Cars of the Future show at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Given the absence of documentation for the original build, Saunders done an excellent job reconstructing it. Although it was shown at the Beaulieu Motor Museum, Saunders still owns it.