Saturday, March 5, 2022

One of 1950s oddly and forgotten concept cars

Weird Ones After the end of the 2nd World War, the automotive manufacturing industry in the United States grew rapidly. So the number of cars on the highway also increased sharply and in line with that also the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents also increased. Because cars designed around the 1950s were not built with safety features such as safety belts, airbags and others.
1958 Sir Vival concept car thought has many safety features built by Walter C. Jerome based of 1948 Hudson. (Picture from: MX5Forum)
Various innovations were produced in this decade to ensure the driver will not be killed if involved in a road accident. One of them has been made and applied to a concept car called Sir Vival. The concept car was said to be "the safest" in the time and designed by Walter C. Jerome from Worcester, Massachusetts in 1958 and to realize this concept he modified a 1948 Hudson to become the first Sir Vival prototype.
Walter C. Jerome posed with his 1958 Sir Vival concept car. (Picture from: MX5Forum)
Physically this concept car consisted two separate parts, namely the front that contains the vehicle's engine and has a rubber bumper on its side and is installed separately with the rear which is the passenger cabin and connected with a rotating hinge.
Car's features embeded on the 1958 Sir Vival concept car. (Picture from: Jalopnik)
The separate front section is expected to absorb the shock if a collision occurs from the front, so that the passenger cabin will be safe from destruction. The installation of rubber bumper on the edge of Sir Vival is also intended to absorb the shock at low speeds.
One of the survived 1958 Sir Vival prototypes built based of 1948 Hudson now heavily rusted at Hudson Dealeship in Route 40, Bellingham. (Picture from: Viva)
Another and most significant innovation is the driver's seat which is made higher than the passenger seat which looks like a turret of an armored vehicle. With such construction, Walter C. Jerome believes that the driver able to sit alone and will not be disturbed by passengers and then can concentrate 100% on the highway.
Rear side view of the survived 1958 Sir Vival prototypes is look need a fully restoration action. (Picture from: Mofler)
The front cylindrical glass is not equipped with a conventional glass wiper because it will block the view when it rains. This silender glass rotates on its own and there is a vertical window wiper on the back of the driver that will wipe off the dirt. In the cabin of the car with Sir Vival features also have other security features such as soft liners and roll cage.
But unfortunately, the brilliant idea made by Walter C. Jerome received less attention from the world automotive community at that time. One of the reasons for Sir Vival's was less welcome, because its "startling unorthodox two-section" design and more shocking $10,000 price tag (at the time the price of Cadillac Series 62 started at around $5,000), or perhaps there were a lot of cooler cars to be driving in the late 50s and early 60s.

There are only a few prototypes of cars been produced and what's more, it's very difficult to get these type of cars survived today. This is real and not an automotive imaginary thing or what? *** [EKA [20122018] | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | WIKIPEDIA | AUTOWEEK | MOFLER | JALOPNIK]
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