From its humble origins as a Queens garbage dump — inspiration for the valley of ashes in “The Great Gatsby” — Flushing Meadows Corona Park emerged as the site of two world’s fairs, in 1939-40 and 1964-65.

The first fair laid out a glorious vision for the automobile: General Motors’ Futurama exhibition, designed by Norman Bel Geddes, depicted the multilane highways of the future. The second fair arrived with that vision mostly realized — and the automobile near the pinnacle of its power and prestige.

Fifty years ago, Lee A. Iacocca unveiled the Mustang even before the fair’s opening day, with a press conference on April 13, 1964. But there were many other auto-centered displays throughout the fair’s run. Chrysler showed cars with turbine engines; General Motors offered concept cars shaped like jet planes.

But in retrospect, the second fair can be seen as the last un-self-conscious public celebration of automotive culture before concerns about safety and fuel economy changed it forever. Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed” would be published the month after the fair closed; waiting in the wings were the OPEC fuel crises and the mass invasion of economical, reliable cars and trucks from Japan.