See the state of the art in automotive design, engineering, and manufacturing in the early 1950s in this excellent Ford Motor Company film.

This film, entitled Tomorrow Meets Today, comes to us courtesy of Ford Heritage at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire, England. (The folks there dated it 1951, though it seems the release date was spring of ’52.) We’d say it’s a cut above the usual industrial films of the time. First, it’s in color; and next, it delves into automotive design, engineering, and manufacturing with greater detail than most.

Points of interest: At the start we see the often-photographed 1951 Ford Muroc concept, which as far as we know never progressed beyond the scale model stage. At 3:25, executives are checking out a fully trimmed clay of the ’52 Ford, then proposed fabric and interior combinations. Venues in Dearborn include the Ford Engineering Laboratory (now known as the EEE Building), the Rouge plant, and the Rotunda. Ultimately, we see the Ford Styling Center under construction (opened in 1953, it was recently demolished to make way for a much larger complex). For the finale, we get a closeup of the Lincoln Continental X-195 dream car, which later became the Ford X-100 (see our feature here). Anyway, enjoy the film.