Cars do not always have to be successful to reshape an industry, and this is particularly true when it comes to models that were designed with a focus on safety, and influenced the safety windscreens that are available today.

In the United States, perhaps the most infamous example of this was the Chrysler Airflow, which was the first car with a curved windscreen, the first car with a body designed in a wind tunnel, and the first car designed with safety as its prime consideration. It was not a success.

An even bigger example of this, however, was the Tucker 48, the infamous “Torpedo” that envisioned the future of safety decades before anyone else.

It was the invention of Preston Tucker, a car industry veteran who worked for Ford, Studebaker, a small racing car manufacturer and knew the Chevrolet brothers.

He had enough influence following the Second World War, therefore, to get the funding for his “car of tomorrow” off the ground, albeit barely.

It was amongst the first cars to have a perimeter chassis designed with crash protection in mind, alongside an integrated roll bar that protected passengers in the event of a rollover. 

It had a padded dashboard to prevent injuries, as well as a crash chamber to protect front-seat passengers, but the windscreen was perhaps one of the most interesting innovations.

It was made from laminated shatterproof glass, using a similar system to those seen with modern windscreens, but was amongst the first to be popped out if there was a crash, allowing for an easy exit. This was proven at 95 miles per hour during a test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

This is a standard component of modern cars, but the Tucker was decades ahead of the rest of the industry in implementing it.

Unfortunately, one of Preston Tucker’s biggest innovations, the pre-order, ultimately led to a criminal investigation on charges that turned out to be baseless. However, this provided enough negative publicity to end the company after only 51 hand-built cars were made.

However, as the safety features above show, the car’s legacy lives on in the vast majority of cars made today.