VIDEO: The future of motoring, circa 1960
Back in 1960, the sky was the limit in terms of technology and industrial growth. 60 years earlier, only the rich had cars and telephones, and television was a pipe-dream. By 1960, however, every family had a car and a television, nuclear power had been invented, and jet airplanes transported people around the globe. The rush of growth led to futurists coming up with wild fantasies of the world to come, and we've found a real classic in the YouTube vault. After the jump is a nine minute cartoon from 1960 that details the future of transportation, from self-driving cars and flying ambulances to highways that are constructed in a day or two.
In some ways, the futuristic video was right on. It shows families driving in what is basically a glass-domed minivan that features children watching TV while dad gets up-to-the-second navigation updates via a punch-card system and a synchronized scanning map. Of course the car drove itself, too, but that technology is also well on its way. The video short mentioned solar power, but the vehicle that relied on the sun for motivation had no wheels and used an electro-glide for movement. Oddly enough, solar power came after atomic propulsion. And even though computers had been around since the 1940s, no mention of the technology was described during the video. Hit the jump to check oit, it's well worth a close look.
[Source: Chuck.Goolsbee.org]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Todd 12:43PM (2/02/2008)
WHERE ARE THOSE SUPER SPEED TRANS-CON HIGHWAYS?!?!?!
Funny how some things never happen, yet others are already around.
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slotownbrian 12:49PM (2/02/2008)
What happened to the future?
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Brett- BMW Advo 12:51PM (2/02/2008)
Looks fun like roller coasters!
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jv2k 1:06PM (2/02/2008)
I like how the movie ranges from plausible to laughably unrealistic.
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Edsel 1:07PM (2/02/2008)
I'd like to know who produced this. Perhaps, GM, Ford, or the construction industry?
Eisenhower signed the fabled Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. So this film might be a follow-on by the transportation industry to drum up citizen support.
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BAMF 1:22PM (2/02/2008)
"As day turns into night, *electric eyes* automatically illuminate the way ahead."
Lights. You mean lights come on, and we are able to see in darkness. Electric eyes?
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BAMF 1:23PM (2/02/2008)
I'd be interested to know as well. If anyone finds out, please post!
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BAMF 1:24PM (2/02/2008)
That was supposed to be a reply to Edsel. (this comment should be a reply to my own comment)
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Alex B 1:26PM (2/02/2008)
Jane, stop this crazy thing!
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500 1:26PM (2/02/2008)
One bump in the road the producers of this film failed to anticipate: anti-car liberals running things.
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DKB_SATX 3:41PM (2/02/2008)
Yeah, anti-car liberals killed the "sun powered electro-suspension car" and the atomic rock-melting tunnel borer?
Chase 1:49PM (2/02/2008)
I think it has something to do with the road itself illuminating, something like the new LED-based reflectors that they're starting to put in highways.
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John 1:59PM (2/02/2008)
It was produced by Disney. You can just see Ward Kimball's name at the end. Also, part of the film was used in the que area of the now defunct ride "Rocket Rods".
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stratojet 2:01PM (2/02/2008)
Wow very cute movie; couple of observations:
1- The wife and kids will go shopping while Daddy goes to the office became:
The wife will go to the office while the kid (one) will be in a day care center. Daddy in the meantime writes his resume trying to find a job in the devastated US economy
2- We will have a modernized highway system to be able to travel faster and easier because we will live in a leasure society.
- We do have a computerized navigation system (Onstar as ex) but we do not have a leasure society except for the extremely rich executives who are either serving time in prison (Enron, Worldcom, Nortel) or flying in their private Jets.
Very good video. At least in the 60's, we had dreams. In the 21st century, all we have is debt, desillusions , frauds, deceptions, and lies. As Buffalo Springfield sang in the 60's in For what it's worth:
"We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down"
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TwinTurbo3000GT 3:37PM (2/02/2008)
"The wife will go to the office while the kid (one) will be in a day care center. Daddy in the meantime writes his resume trying to find a job in the devastated US economy"
god damn your ignorant. The unemployment rate has been falling in recent years and is currently below 5%.
Not Detroit 2:03PM (2/02/2008)
The soundtrack and the narrator sound familiar. I think this video was produced by Disney. Some of the architecture for the highways looks close to the Tomorrowland area at Disneyland before they remodeled it for a third time. I used to work for Disney and I remember hearing that when Tomorrowland underwent its first facelift in 1964 from the original in 1955, Tomorrowland was supposed to resemble the world in 1985, I think.
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Andrew Tanasescu 2:49PM (2/02/2008)
They missed the fact that everyone would be severely obese since you never do anything physical.
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dean 3:04PM (2/02/2008)
We have all these dystopian movies out, but compared to the Utopian movie above....our reality is dystopian!
I love how the super-wide, super-fast freeways only have about 100 motorists total. Hardly anyone using the super freeways in the video.
On a side note, often these Utopian future-minded videos (even current ones) don't face practicality. Do we actually need some of these things, or do they actually make a difference? Like Minority Reports way of transferring the video/imagery/data from one giant clear monitor/wall to another by swiping it onto a portable glass unit, then plugging it into another glass wall/monitor. Don't they have WiFi in the future? Am I missing something?
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John 2:55PM (2/02/2008)
Stratojet - the economy is hardly "devastated". The GDP says otherwise. Unless you live in Michigan because its a one state recession with an ineffective Governor. The rest of the country is still doing well.
I am still waiting for the day my car can drive itself.
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David 3:05PM (2/02/2008)
In reply to the lit road:
I think the "electronic eyes" were what we now know as a photocell. They probably didn't have those back then.
And by illumination, I don't think they were referring to lights per se. I think they meant electroluminescence like many car gauges have that would actually light the road's surface.
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