photo #9236088

◇ Walter C. Jerome of Worcester, Massachusetts, wanted to build the world's safest vehicle. The result was the Sir Vival. It looks like nothing else on the road. The defining feature is an articulated, two part chassis. The engine and front wheels are in a separate forward section, isolated from the driver and passenger cabin. In a head on collision, the front section absorbs and deflects kinetic energy away from the occupants. The cabin is reinforced. The sides have rubber bumpers. The interior surfaces are padded. Seat belts are built in. All of this in 1958. ◇ The driver sits in a raised, central, cylindrical glass cockpit. The visibility is 360 degrees. The curved glass required a continuous rotary windshield wiper mechanism to keep it clear in heavy rain. The Sir Vival was built on a heavily modified 1948 Hudson sedan chassis. The car never went into production. It was too strange. Too expensive. Too ahead of its time. But the ideas inside it, the articulated chassis, the reinforced cabin, the seat belts, eventually became standard features in modern cars. ◇ The Sir Vival still exists. It pops up at car shows and museums. People stare at it. They laugh. They take photos. Then they read the plaque and realize that Walter Jerome was not crazy. He was prescient. His car was ugly. But his ideas saved lives. The Sir Vival never saved anyone directly. It never drove a family to school or a commuter to work. But its DNA is in every modern car. The two piece chassis never caught on. The rest of it did. [Disclaimer: This image is for illustrative purposes only.]