Cars with three front seats and center steering are old hat - Fusi-Ferro Aurora 8
Perhaps the most famous sports car with central steering is the 1992 McLaren F1 , but it was not the first sports car to give the driver a central position in a three-seater cockpit. Pininfarina had already had this idea before him, implemented in the Ferrari 365 P Tre Postifrom 1966.
However, the Ferrari prototype was not the first either, as the Fusi-Ferro Aurora 8 was already on display at the Turin Motor Show in 1948. At the time, this car was quite simply a sensation. The Fusi-Ferro company, founded in Milan in 1932, was actually a motorcycle manufacturer. But after the war, the company considered entering the automobile production business.
The prototype, which was presented in 1948, was almost beyond anything that had been seen before. The 4.7 m long and 1.82 m wide saloon offered no fewer than six seats in two rows and was a modest 1.4 m high for the time. The five passengers made themselves comfortable under a glass dome, while the pilot sat in the middle at the front and looked out over a long front section as he accelerated the car to around 140 km/h. An eight-cylinder engine provided the power. Propulsion was provided by an eight-cylinder in-line engine with a displacement of 1086 cm3, which was good for 60 hp at 5000 rpm.
The entire car with its tubular frame and light metal body weighed just 900 kg.
The Automobil Revue wrote at the time:
" Another new release from the Fusi-Ferro company in Como is called the "Aurora". The prototype on show, the only car in existence to date, has a highly unusual body shape with a Plexiglas roof and sun blinds matching the upholstery, which can be opened and closed from the driver's seat. The two benches each seat three people and the driver sits in the middle of the front row. The engine has eight cylinders, a displacement of 1100 cm3 and, according to the manufacturer, should deliver 60 hp."
Unfortunately, it never went into series production and today only historians remember this unusual design.
In our online image/document archive, however, there are ten photographsof the fastback saloon that have probably never been published before , as well as the simple sales documents . It's worth a look!
