In the past, the future was amazing

August 15, 2025Newsletter Archives

To me, there’s nothing more fascinating than to remember how humankind viewed the future…in the past. That’s the charm of revisiting “Key to the Future,” a short film produced by General Motors in 1956 in connection with that year’s edition of the company’s Motorama automotive expo.

We took a fresh look at the film in the latest edition of GM Theater, a look back at interesting video from the GM Heritage archive.

“Key to the Future” explores the notion that if you looked 20 years down the road, American families would be zipping down the road in turbine-powered vehicles like the Firebird II concept car, with the ability to shift to hands-off driving mode, while taking advantage of an “electronic control strip” in the center lane.  

A kooky bit of musical sci-fi fluff, “Key to the Future” wasn’t intended to be watched alone - it was originally part of an extravagant 35-minute multimedia experience of the same name produced for Motorama. The original production included a live cast of 70 singers, dancers, and musicians, performed six times a day. When it was announced in January 1956, GM described the experience as “a bubbling show that leaps from a tuneful today into a fabulous tomorrow.”

But the film’s vision of the future was not completely off base. Almost 70 years later, GM remains a big believer in the promise and power of hands-free driving. As of June 30, our Super Cruise hands-free driver assistance technology1 was installed on more than 500,000 vehicles, more than double the year-ago level. The technology is now offered on 23 models. And customers seem to like it: We expect 2025 revenue from Super Cruise of more than $200 million and project the number to more than double in 2026. And GM remains hard at work on developing personal autonomous vehicles.

On the other hand, the car in the film had a nifty compartment installed in the dash that included an orange juice dispenser - and a supply of ice cream. 

Now there’s a version of the future I can get behind.

-- Eric J. Savitz, Editor-in-Chief, GM News