The world of 1976: A high-tech wonderland of self-driving cars and smart roads, where the dapper motorist can program his destination and let his glorious land yacht handle the driving. Or so General Motors predicted in this must-be-seen-to-be-believed 1956 promotional film that the company screened back then at its traveling auto show, Motorama.

If you can spare 9 minutes to watch this full clip, unearthed by Philip E. Ross at IEEE Spectrum, you won't be sorry. Yes, it's a corny six-decades-old movie that is hilariously wrong about how far along car tech would be by the mid-70s. But it's also full of ideas that are still prevalent in the way we think about cars and connectivity in 2015.

For example:

• They have a combination of Siri and OnStar, except that it's a man in a tower and talking to him requires the use of ham radio lingo, over. It's a totally '50s take on a personal assistant to help you in the car. Yet the helper man offers you multiple route options when you ask for directions, just like Google Maps does, and at the end even recommends a great hotel, like Siri is supposed to do. Plus he joins in with the vacationing family on the jaunty tune they sing at the video's end. Try getting that level of service out of Cortana.

• The movie's vision of self-driving cars involves an "electronic control strip"—basically, a line drawn down the highway that the car knows how to follow. Just "synchronize your speed and direction," like the man in the tower says, and the car can take over. Today, most of our plans for smart roads don't involve painting a line down the middle of the road. But autonomous cars do find their way in part by learning to interpret the lines already drawn on the road.

• The roads of would-be 1976 have a separate lane for the cars that are driving themselves, like an HOV or express lane, but for autonomy.

Still, I have a lot of questions. Are they really going to travel all the way from this cheaply painted desert of the American Southwest to Chicago? What happened to our future Firebirds outfitted with cigars, iceboxes, and fold-down tray tables? Is the 405 still clogged?

Anyway, see this masterpiece for yourself:

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Source: IEEE Spectrum

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