Forget what you learned from watching “Leave it to Beaver” reruns: The late 1950s were hardly a golden age in America. The Soviets were never more than a few seconds from annihilating the world, poisoned air was shortening your life (at least according to Mechanix Illustrated) and an ever-growing number of speeding, seatbelt-less hunks of Detroit steel made venturing out on our shiny new Interstate Highway System virtual suicide.

Fortunately, we had a hero: Sir Vival, the most grotesque thing to ever sally forth on four wheels. Sir Vival might have been a cyclopean horror (not to mention a bad use of an innocent 1948 Hudson), but he was a cyclopean horror with our best interests at heart.

Designed by Walter C. Jerome of Worcester, Mass., Sir Vival was the subject of a feature in the April 1959 issue of Mechanix Illustrated. The magazine billed it as the “Last Word in Safety Cars?” (the question mark was their addition, not ours.) You can read a high-resolution scan of that issue below.

Despite its “startling unorthodox two-section” design and shocking $10,000 price tag (a Cadillac Series 62 started at around $5,000), Mechanix Illustrated chose to play it straight, highlighting the car's numerous safety features.

And not entirely without reason. Let's ignore Sir Vival's horrifying looks and the utter lack of a compelling business case for it (Americans will always choose a stylish, unsafe ride over a nightmarish $10,000 safety-mobile) and take a look at its several innovative features. A central steering position isn't such a bad idea -- at least the boys at McLaren didn't think so when they designed the F1. Doors that stay closed in an accident? Who could be opposed to that?

That conical driver's portal/dome setup is actually rather ingenious, too. Instead of conventional windshield wipers, Jerome positioned built-in felt wipers on the inner and outer edges of the dome's frame. By rotating the dome, it was cleaned continuously. Brilliant!

Maybe Sir Vival deserves a second chance. If you're in the mood for a hopelessly expensive restoration job and don't care a whit about making your money back when it's all done -- if it's ever done -- we just so happen to know where Sir Vival is living out his slightly rusted, more or less complete dotage.

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