Update: A look back at one of our favorite stories from 2011.
A restoration of what must rank as one of the most prescient cars ever designed will go on display this weekend in Melbourne, Australia. In an age dominated by style icons such as the Mini Cooper and Chevy Camaro, the 1969 Holden Hurricane was ahead of its time in almost every aspect, including powertrain, shaping and technology.
The two-seater model, produced by an R&D team for the 1969 Melbourne Motor show, used a 4.2-liter engine with a four-barrel carburetor — which wouldn’t be seen on a production Holden until the late 1970s — to give it an output of 262 hp, a huge amount for the day.
Other insightful additions included electronic digital instrument dislpays, a station-seeking radio, automatic temperature control air conditioning and a rear-vision camera — technologies which are only just becoming commonplace in models today.
Perhaps most impressive was the ‘Pathfinder’ system, a navigation tool that relied on magnets embedded at intersections to guide drivers by illuminating different arrows in the cockpit — incredible foresight from a team working four years before the global position system was even conceived.
All of these features have been worked into the restoration project, which has taken a team of engineers and designers from Holden five years to complete.
The model will be on display at Motorclassica, a car show in Melbourne from October 21-23.
