The Space Age exerted a huge influence on the aesthetics of many markets in the late '60s, and cars were no exception. Several manufacturers developed futuristic prototypes to test experimental technologies, and one of the most interesting is the Holden Hurricane, built by Australian company Holden in 1969. With a combination of digital and electromechanical instruments, magnetic navigation, an integrated reversing camera and automatic climate control, the Hurricane is on par with many modern vehicles, even with 53 years on the chassis.
Engineers use the experimental profile of concept cars to explore design trends without much risk, and sometimes their results are etched into our minds. The gallery we shared with the best retro-futuristic cars of the last 50 years is full of concept cars, and to be honest, I think we will never get tired of them.
Some of those vehicles are truly wonderful, and we still dream of seeing them on the road, to a greater or lesser extent. The alternative is seeing their technologies applied to production models, and something like that happened with the Holden Hurricane, designed by the company Holden, historic subsidiary of General Motors in Australia.
Holden Hurricane: The Future of the Past on Four Wheels
If we talk about a dashboard screen, digital and electromechanical instruments, automatic climate control and assisted navigation, the Hurricane might not attract much attention... but the point is that it incorporated all of that in 1969, anticipating years ahead of the rest of the industry. What do we know about that navigation system? It was called Pathfinder, and it relied on magnetic signals on the road to assist the driver. The automatic air conditioning control was named Comfortron, and the radio, although it had no formal title, could search and tune stations on its own.
The trained eye will surely have already noticed the absence of doors on the Holden Hurricane, replaced with a canopy that opens over the dashboard and steering wheel. The Hurricane's body is made of fiberglass, and its maximum height (with the canopy closed) is only 99 centimeters. Now, the question many must be asking is "how do you drive in reverse with the back blocked?" Holden solved that detail by installing a camera in the bumper, equipped with a photocell for adaptation to different light levels, and connected to a closed-circuit system.
Unfortunately, almost none of that innovation reached general production models with the change of decade, the only exception being its 4.2-liter V8 engine, which gave rise to more than half a million Holden units with similar engines in Australian territory. What happened to the Hurricane? It was "rediscovered" in 1988, and restored by Holden Design in 2011 (the video we shared is from that year).
Source: Supercars
