Ford had a big new styling studio in 1954, and the Dearborn carmaker is proudly showing it off in this vintage factory film.     

There are plenty of shiny new Fords on display in this 1954 factory film, but the real star of the show is the company’s $11 million Ford Styling Center, a key part of the impressive new Ford Research and Engineering Center. Dedicated in May of 1953 by President Dwight Eisenhower, the engineering campus stretches out nearly a half mile along Oakwood Avenue in Dearborn, directly across from the Henry Ford Museum and Ford’s Dearborn Proving Grounds. A state-of-the-art facility in 1954, the Styling Center included art studios, model shops, and an outdoor viewing court, as will se see in the movie. By the way, the entire campus is currently in the midst of a 10-year, multi-billion-dollar remodeling.

There’s a small bit of irony. we suppose, in the fact that actually, most of the changes for the 1954 model year were under the skin. The exterior styling received only a minor facelift that season, but underneath there was a new chassis with ball-joint front suspension, and the trusty flathead V8 was finally replaced with the modern Y-Block overhead-valve V8. (Read about the Y-Block V8 here.) Get all the details on the “Worth More Car,” as the ’54 Ford was billed, in the video below.