From a time when General Motors ruled the world: This newsreel presents the fabulous 1954 GM Motorama at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

There really are no modern parallels to the annual GM Motorama spectaculars of the American mid-century. As we’ve often referenced here at Mac’s Motor City Garage, the Motoramas were elaborate multimedia extravaganzas that used theater, music, even interpretive dance to present the corporation’s advanced products, from the latest Cadillac dream cars to the kitchens of tomorrow.

More than 1.9 million visitors took in the show in the 1954 season, which opened on January 26 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. In this two-minute newsreel on the ’54 show, we see a number of Motorama dream cars that would soon become famous, including:

+   The Chevrolet Nomad, which showcased the division’s sports wagon concept, on a Corvette theme in its original form.

+   The Buick Wildcat II, a radical sports roadster that still exists today at the Sloan Museum in Flint, Michigan.

+   The Cadillac El Camino, a close-coupled coupe that introduced GM customers to the El Camino name, later used on a series of Chevy passenger car-based pickups.

+   The turbine-powered GM Firebird I, which even six decades later looks more like a jet fighter than an automobile.

+   The Pontiac Bonneville, the Pontiac division’s take on the two-seat sports car category as exemplified by the Chevrolet Corvette.

See all these wonders and more in the video below.