The Oldsmobile Golden Rocket concept. Still image from video below.
Surreal. Ethereal. Dreamlike. These hypnagogic adjectives may rarely come up in conversations with your buddies as you wrench on the car. But the next time they’re over to help you drop in that newly restored engine, switch off the How to Drop in a Newly Restored Engine video and and run this bit of whimsy instead. What it lacks in pertinent information is more than made up for in atmospheric sets, choreography and musical production value.
Pontiac’s Club de Mer concept.
In addition to the Motorama vehicles you’re here to ogle, this bizarre theatrical number has far more to offer. Not just the cars of tomorrow, but the kitchens of tomorrow, and the electronic roadways of tomorrow and the promise that diaphanous gowns, masquerade masks, top hats and tails will always be in style. At least in certain venues.
GM’s Firebird II concept.
Revealed in this all-nocturnal staging — created for those unable to attend Motorama on tour — is a sampling of GM’s 1956 production models. But what’s truly worth the effort of enduring all this High Art (oh, if you must, jump to 6:00) are tantalizingly brief glimpses of the Cadillac Eldorado Town Car, Buick’s Centurion, the Oldsmobile Golden Rocket, Pontiac’s Club de Mer, the Chevrolet Impala and, after an impressive salvo from the smoke machines, the turbine-powered Firebird II takes to the road of tomorrow.
This film is exactly what developed when GM’s advertising budget was way too high, which is one reason why we don’t expect to see the likes of this head-scratcher in production any time soon. We got yer culture AND cars right here, in under 10 minutes.
Public domain archival footage courtesy of the Internet Moving Images Archive, , in association with Prelinger Archives.
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