Here in 2015, self-driving cars are only just hitting the open road in earnest, but the idea goes back decades and decades. In fact, self-driving cars were scooting around as long ago as 1971, and even by today's standards they look pretty legit.

This particular car was a project of the BritishRoad Research Laboratory and worked via "electronic impulses relayed to the car through a special receiving unit affixed to the front." More specifically, that big box on the front bumper there was following a breadcrumb trail of metallic strips placed on the road; a far cry from the self-driving cars of today that actually see and parse the real world, but more than enough to get going on a test track. At the time, researchers predicted these might be in wide use by the year 2000. Looks like their guess was a little bit optimistic, but far from wrong.

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This fantastic little video is out on the internet now thanks to the Associated Press, which just dumped over half a million archived clips onto YouTube. Go and dig through them and maybe you'll find some proto hoverboards too.

Source: British Movietone via The Associated Press

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