Aurora Vehicle Association will highlight 20 years of progress in solar car design by displaying its latest solar racer beside its original 1987 model.

Both cars are also scheduled for the Motor Show Cavalcade from Town Hall to Federation Square on 27th February, 2008.

A voluntary group based in Melbourne, Aurora started in 1980 with petrol vehicles, setting the world record at 0.0553125 l/100 km - or 5,107 miles per gallon.

In 1987 it went solar to contest the first trans-continental World Solar Challenge and it has since recorded one win, four seconds, one third, one fifth, one sixth and one crash.

Its first solar racer, which has been converted to battery power and renamed "Christine", will stand beside Aurora 101, which came third in class at the 2007 World Solar Challenge at an average of 85 km/h.

Last month Christine (shown above) set a new world record for distance travelled by an electric car on a single battery charge, adding 42 km to the previous record to travel 811.6 km in 15 hours 18 minutes on just $1.28 worth of electricity.

Without its solar panel, Christine has an estimated aerodynamic drag coefficient of 0.2, which is about two-thirds that of the best road cars, but still more than double that of Aurora 101 (opposite).

On the same day, Aurora 101 set out to challenge the world record for distance covered in 24 hours by a solar car - which the previous Aurora set at 1,701 km in 2005.

Although Aurora 101 covered "only" 1,590 km, it did so while running its own LED headlights during the night - and used just 5.8 kW hours of battery power, worth just 85 cents.