Everyone has a formal party outside a planetarium, right? They're all gathered, apparently, to watch animated meteors turn into three brand-new Fords.(Ironically, one is not the Ford Meteor, but I think they were only made in Canada).
Did anyone who owned a Falcon actually have a tuxedo?
Since Ford has a ton of money, they bought the rights to use the music to "It's a Big Wide Wonderful World That We Live In" for its theme as people milled about.
This was pretty much the end of the car-fin era.

The production values are truly spectacular - it looks like it was filmed on the back lot of M-G-M and the cars are beautiful. GREAT SPOT - THANK YOU, filmways!

I'm not sure which is more gorgeous - the lush production value or the cars. I'm leaning toward the cars. That Ford Galaxie is fantastic.

The most splashy, elegant car ad ever. Amazing to see a color ad in 1960. Funny how they even make the oh-so ordinary Falcon look glamorous in gleaming white. But changing the T-Bird from the world's coolest sports car into a bloated boat family wagon was one of the great crimes of automotive design. The 1955-57 models are still the ones collectors cherish to this day.

Also surprising that this was made by Filmways. They produced sitcoms like The Addams Family, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies etc.

I just love this commercial. It's classy, sophisticated and elegant. The cars are average, But the commercial is fabulous!

I think the narrator is Adam West.

It sure sounds like the breathy exuberance
of TV's Batman.

This is a great ad either way !

If only he had been promoting a Lincoln Futura ...
oh well, at least they are Fords.

one of the most memorable ads i have ever seen, this delightful ad will please many people, and is great fun for musical fans,including me.one of the best ads ever.

This is a great clip of the times. Yep, they were innocent! In 1964 I acquired a 1960 Ford Fairlane with 33000 miles on it and for a young fellow of 20 I thought I was about the coolest guy around. It was a great car and never gave me any trouble. It was comfortable and actually had room for six people inside. It was a 292 V-8 with a three speed column shift and had more than enough power to get up to 70+ and stay there all day. Nothing flimsy about it either, made out of steel and a real frame underneath it. Now adays cars are just not the same with their tinker toy engines and computers that leave you stranded by the side of the road when they feel like it. No computers on these 60's, just a fuel pump, carbeurator, plugs and point type ignition. The early sixties were a magical time for me, I was young and carefree and the future was ahead. Then on a november day in 1963 the world changed for ever. Goodbye JFK and the innocense of your 1000 days as president. Nothing since has been the same for the world including cars. Everything got complicated and cars got smaller as did the world. Get a 60 ford if you can and enjoy the times of motoring the way it should be: driving along americas highways in a real car.

The commercial was excellent for 1960. It had style and gave a nice impression of the Ford cars.

Loved that music from the opening to where the camera pans down to the people, very classy, sounded like taken out of a movie. Nice effect shot of the first comet zooming to the right and turning into the Galaxie too. Those rich people gawking at a Falcon was a bit of a stretch though.

All these bombastic reviews on this page are exercises in academic nonsense. This is a simple, graceful, well executed promotional film that captures not only the style of the 1960 Fords, (which was delightful) but the image of the times, which was the height of Cold War tension and the beginning of the Space Race which so dominated the culture.
Did everyone dress this way? Of course not. Not everyone lived like the Cleavers of Mayfield either. This was an age when television in general and advertising in particular presented a standard of living middle Americans wished to attain. The three shiny and new 1960 Fords presented here fit that desire very well.
Since Ford was a regular sponsor of the Wonderful World of Disney in the early 60s, I would not be surprised to discover that this film was used in that capacity. Thus, The Wonderful World of Ford.

these are the coolest cars for the time . most of us could only dream of owning one of the collectors cars today. these are real cars not that garbage you all drive today. these cars will be around long after what is now your new s.u.v. has been long gone.

c'mon this is exactly how commercials today will look in 40-50 years to the next generations. don't be so silly.

I always believed that people in this era were like this but I think only a segment of the population lived this way. I think the commercial does have aesthetic value but it also demonstrates how American was so caught up in false pretenses and superficial commercialism. It's still true today but commercials are not as subtle and creative as they used to be. There were a lot of bad things going on at that time that were conveniently swept under the rug. But society couldn't continue living in denial and that is one of the reasons a backlash occurred within few years after the beginning of the 60s. A few summarized it quite well when they said that this was like the end of a previous decade that was fixated on more innocent and superficial themes. Nevertheless, there were bad elements in society like the outlaw bikers that one would never imagine if they see these kind of commercials. It was like a contrast and not like today where the dregs of society are almost worshipped and emulated. Maybe those days were better...for some.

Finally getting around to seeing something that 9 people have already reviewed ;)

The wonder new world of (white) Fords are explored here, briefly. Rather peculiar commercial actually with people dressed in finery for now reason hanging outside a planetarium when all of a sudden three white ugly Fords plop down from the sky! The people look in wonder, like they havent seen a car before (and they don't touch them).
In my opinion, these aren't the GREATEST car ads in the world, I've seen better...

This has to be the epitome of the "GlamLuxe" of futura automobile commercials. A mini-Musical- Metro Goldwyn Mayer Moment. Lusciously first-rate choreographed cinematography. I absolutely love it, and wish they still did them like this. No stone is left unturned in the presentation of "wonder and awe"; no stylist has been left at the studio -this is THE Grand-daddy of no expense spared, all-out production numbers for a domestically manufactured automobile.

It appears to be made specifically for either a car show presentation or as an insert in the middle of a Ford sponsored program, without many of the irritating short commercials in-between such, as we do now. That was the way many television programs were broadcast then...

I'm going to forward this to an executive friend at Ford Canada, here in Oakville Ontario where I live. With all of the retro-styling going on, perhaps they should re-think their current methods of advertising and try this sort of thing again. We need it. Even for a smile.

This is not a Parody. It is that to what all others after it were judged.

With a sumptuous and gorgeous orchestration (I wonder with curious hindsight if the music was written by the same person who did the inimitable, memorable & melodic title Straussian Waltz for the 60's classic TV series "Flipper"!? It certainly seems so.) Or at least the Opening Credits with Tinkerbell; wand in hand flirting with angelic chorus presiding over Fireworks in [Living Color] - in "The Won-der-ful World of Dis-ney"...Remember?

It reminds me of a delightfully fluffy Doris Day comedy. You can't help but spread a wistful grin, and thoroughly enjoy the sublimely mercurial gloss-over silliness. Again - joyous, naive, sweet and not at all the swansong to "the end of an era" as some posts here indicate.

That dear folks, came three years later in November of 1963.

I read some reviews that seem to dog out the happy, space-aged vibe this promo conveys, but these reviewers must be either too young to remember, or too are jaded, and that's too bad. This was filmed at a time when we were going to the moon, a time we were scared to death of the "Red Menance", and anything space-aged and futuristic (as well as anything "atomic" or "jet") was in. This ad perfectly captures the time at which it was filmed, and should be looked at in that light. Remember too that this was the beginning of a new decade, and ya know... the 60s really did bring a lot of new and exciting things to our lives, things that just started to happen in the mid to late 50s, but fully bloomed in the 60s. The excitement of all that is captured, perhaps just a little, in this clip.

Anyhoo, they're selling cars here, not trying to solve the world's problems, so look at it, enjoy the imagery and the step right back to exactly how we looked at things as the decade ended and the 60s began.

Maybe it really was a nicer, happier time. After all, it's certainly a lot more imaginative and interesting way to sell cars than the boring dreck we're barraged with today. (Led Zep selling Cadillacs? Push the button, Frank.)

This ad breaks my heart a little. What we're witnessing is the end of an era. Though the writers try to glean excitement in the product line, it is wrapped dour, dark imagery. What we're seeing is not so much a "new world", as it is the last spewing fourth from the old world...an almost breathless, exhausted attempt to make you excited via tired, TIRED marketing. It tries SO hard that it parodies itself...I don't think another advertisement has ever done that so well. Want to know why the 1960's happened? This is one of the culprits.

Everyone appears to be happy, floating in space, and angelic voices are everywhere. It must be heaven! Especially when three new Fords come down in fireballs from space.

Man, I wish I could've lived back then, when everybody was happy. And the first thing I'd have done would be to buy one of these new Fords!

A few clips used -- the least serious clips in the whole film.

I watched this without sound.

It was fantastic, and an amazing reveal of how motor manufacturers expected us to be able to see their product.

very good

case

With the three Ford model lines shown here together, in the same place and in the same color, it's easy to see how the marketing of American cars worked. With each increasing price point, you got more chrome, more power accessories, and more suggestion of status and buying power. Buy a Falcon, and you get those concave, sculpted sides, raked wheelarches, round jet-exhaust taillights. But move up to the Galaxie (a name that blends the Space Age world of satellites with that faux-French misspelling of the car's name) and you get the same shape, only CHROMED. And choose the "world's most-wanted car", the Thunderbird, and you've just bought the "dream car" of the whole range. But the sheet metal and the underlying mechanicals stay much the same. Only the image has changed.

This short film introduced to the world the 1960 model Fords. And it's not so much an introduction as a society girl's debut. The three cars are in virginal white and surrounded by rich folks in formal dress singing about the "wonderful new world of Fords". Somebody at Ford was taking the new model year way too seriously. This was made in 1960, near the end of the populuxe era, and so was a kind of swan song for this sort of thing.
Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***. Also available on Ephemeral Films.