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General Motors’ 1964 New York World’s Fair Futurama Film Presents A Glimpse Of The 60s

Little did we know that in the early 1960s, General Motors produced this film that follows a boy as he visits the Futurama II ride — a sequel to the notable 1939 New York World’s Fair Futurama — at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The feature presents a vision of the “near future” through a series of rather detailed dioramas.

Most eye-opening is the film’s interpretation of the future, which includes deep ocean mining and drilling along with carving through rain forests with lasers for the sake of laying highways (and more highways), among other things. Hey, the film was, after all, funded by The General.

The GM Authority Take

If only the fine ladies and gentlemen knew back then of such GM products as the Chevy Volt, Cadillac ELR, or the Chevy Spark EV… but then again, it’s very likely that those same folks fully expected Pontiac, the Camaro Z/28, ZL1, Corvette, and whatever high-performance Cadillacs to continue well into the twenty-first century without so much as a hitch. No matter — the video simply offers up an honest glimpse into the era’s mindset and foundation for the future. Also, Maximum Bob Lutz hails from that time — perhaps lending a hint to the infamous “global warming is a crock” mindset.

But in all seriousness, this was a type of marketing (advertising, rather) that was prominent in the fifties and sixties. The objective was to create good, warm and fuzzy feelings about the future, and then intersperse a brand or a company into it, all in an effort to elicit an association in the mind of the consumer between a bright, possibility- and opportunity-rich future and the company in question. Pretty clever.

GM Authority Executive Editor with a passion for business strategy and fast cars.

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Comments

  1. Wow, some pretty amazing stuff here in this almost “utopian” view of the future. Makes one wonder what could have been, and what could still be. I thought it was real good(interesting), thanks for bringing it to us .

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  2. Great job, like it 🙂

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  3. Yes, it was a clever type of advertising, makes me want to go out and buy a Chevy today.

    The sad thing is that kid they keep showing eventually started buying imports in the 80s and then locally assembled imports in the 2000s.

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  4. Interesting glimpse into the “future”. Would anyone have belived , in ’64, that GM would fail? That a company that could build most anything back then would’nt be able to turn out anything bigger than a pick-up or a station wagon in the future?

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  5. GREAT story/video. What, no flying cars? No hot chicks in this video? Dang. I would have liked to see some real “Madmen” women in it. I guess everyone was white back then.
    I wish this future happened with all their talk about commerce, shopping oil exploration and such, the Democrats/environmentalists made sure it didn’t. Now we have lots of oil but Obama won’t let us get it making gas $4.00, reducing our standard of living.

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    1. “I wish this future happened with all their talk about commerce, shopping oil exploration and such, ”

      As if it’s natural, reasonable, or logical to predict an “onward and upward” linear growth pattern. That natural resources would just continue existing forever. That’s what happens when you predict a world centered around the car not of people. No wonder GM promoted this video; no one at GM was being rational or realistic….or even scientific.

      The difference now is that the Internet dictates the role of business, oil dependence is not something to be celebrated, and much of America is still scientifically illiterate as dictated by the above clip that says “a future of limitless promise”.

      Furthermore, this issue of present day not mirroring the imagined world of a predictive video from the 60’s is not a political matter, but a social one. Given what we know today about trends in human lifestyles, you’ll find more and more people living in cities now that ever before.

      Because of this, GM’s Futurama vision hangs on the idea that personal automotive transportation demand will remain forever. The fact is from Gen Y onward, cars are going to be seen as an expensive luxury, especally if you live in a city and all of your main needs within walking are are accessible from with a building complex. There will still be cars, but for the transit of goods, public transit, taxis, emergency crafts, and for tradesmen.

      We can forgive GM for being short-sighted and unscientific back then, but the video does nothing to highlight a present day disinterest in cars that could threaten GM. As I’ve said before, eventually GM will have to be less of a car company and more of a transportation company if they are going to survive in the long term.

      But hey, I can make a prediction and be wrong just as GM was back then. I mean back then oil was thought of as being finite….so therefore the demand for cars will last forever too, right?

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  6. That was mighty bold of you Michael W, the last time I made comments like that here all the so and so’s tried to crucify me.

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  7. Ah, communal living, peace love and happiness… This reminds me of the stepford wifes movie… Love how Joe brings up that everyone was white back in the day… Thank goodness for diversity…

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  8. It makes one today wonder what all they have wrong today about our future today.

    Around the time man thinks he is all so smart and has it all figured out nature and God puts him back in his place.

    So often we are too smart for our own good.

    Back then they thought the USSR, GM and America were all too big to fail. Well two down and the last is heading dangerously in that direction.

    As for Bob Lutz. more power to him. It is true that his thinking is from this era where they proved scientifically beyond any doubt that we were headed back to the Ice Age and anyone who disagreed was a heretic back then. Give it 25 years and we will be back to that scenario again so don’t toss out the winter parka. LOL! .

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    1. Awesome, insightful comment.

      Reply

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