Auto-history.tv -motoring history film archive

An instructional film showing how to park your car in the increasingly busy city streets of America at the beginning of the 1950s. It contains great footage of period cars and street scenes from the era.

A national contest to find the best young drivers in America in 1940. Young men from across the country converge on New York City for a series of driving tests with the winners receiving their awards from Edsel Ford at a lavish closing banquet.

A parade of "ancient" cars are featured at a show to celebrate 50 years of the automobile.

Colourful film showing dozens of American car buyers arriving in London in 1958 to collect their new Triumph TR3 sports cars at Heathrow airport before enjoying a touring holiday of Europe and having their new cars shipped back to the US for them.

Demonstration of a sophisticated mechanized ice sled which easily travels over ice covered ground.

Early film comedy showing a mock race between an early motor car and a horse and a buggy. The idea was to show that even the diehard horse lover would be better off getting a new motorised horseless carriage.

A fascinating tour of the 1939 World's Fair in New York City and in particular the impressive Ford building which not only shows visitors all the cars built by Ford from the beginning of the century onwards, but exactly how a car is built and works, using life-size interactive demonstrations and real workers. Visitors are also driven along the "dream highway of the future", although, sadly, no such fantasy roads have actually subsequently been built.

Extraordinary durability run which shows a Ford V8 car undergoing a monumental 30,000 mile journey through the deserts of Arizona and California in just 30 days.  Silent with captions.

Extraordinary durability run which shows a Ford V8 car undergoing a monumental 30,000 mile journey through the deserts of Arizona and California in just 30 days. Silent with captions.

A promotional film which shows the success of the main Detroit car manufacturers in the early 1930s.

Brief film of esteemed American auto artist, Alice Plaster, who specialises in painting classic Jaguars.

Evocative, postwar, May day celebrations in Moscow see a huge amount of armaments and other wheeled machines drive through the centre of the Russian capital.

Highlights of a seven hour fund-raising parade through New York City in the 1960s by the Shriners (an American charitable organisation helping good causes) who used a variety of large floats and unusual cars.

A feature on the popularity of classic convertibles towards the end of the 1980s. As their demand had increased significantly, so had their value and the film shows many of the most popular classics of the period.

A film made for Ford dealers showing a 10 point plan they should follow to maintain the new Ford V8 cars for 1940.