Ford Aurora Concept Debut Reimagined With Artificial Intelligence

Back in the spring of 1964, the Ford Aurora concept made its debut at the New York World's Fair, looking like a station wagon that may have time traveled directly from the future. This particular concept not only looked like a space ship on wheels, it also featured a television, three radios, a beverage cooler, an oven, refrigerator, and even a kid's playroom inside - plus a sunroof capable of turning opaque to transparent at the touch of a button, a dashboard map that tracked its position in real-time, and a steering bar in place of a traditional wheel.

Thus, it's safe to say that the Ford Aurora concept was far ahead of its time, given the fact that many of these features are commonplace in modern automobiles - built six decades later. That's also what inspired The Blue Oval's archives team to reimagine its debut on National AI Day, which it accomplished using artificial intelligence filmmaking tools. The result is quite simple, yet also pretty cool to take in.

The reimagined Ford Aurora debut imagines how the wagon may have been revealed to the world in the 1960s, if the automaker had today's advanced filmmaking tools to work with. It managed to do precisely that in a heavily stylized, period-correct way, with a retro-futuristic tone, plus the same sort of narration style one might see in a mid-century promotional film. The Aurora embarks on a classic American road trip to Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, Death Valley, Route 66, and a few Michigan roads thrown in for good measure.

"We're not claiming to be designing a new vehicle," said Ford Chief Archivist Ted Ryan. "We're bringing an old property to life in a new way. The Aurora was designed to show what the American station wagon of the future could be. And now we’re combining the past with the future in the present.”