This unusual car was built in the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, a subsidiary of the Cornell University of New York. John O. Moore started to research the automotive and aeronautical safety. He pioneered the use of crash testing, originally using corpses rather than dummies.
So he created The Automotive Crash Injury Research Center which was transformed in 1972 into Calspan Corporation.
He discovered that improved door locks, energy-absorbing steering wheels, padded dashboards, and seat belts could prevent an extraordinary percentage of injuries. Padding and seat belts became standard equipment on production cars in the Sixties.