“A Car Is Born” is a late 1960s Ford Motor Company promotional film that shows how the modern automotive assembly line produces a precision machine. The film begins with a literal bang — a massive explosion of earth followed by scenes from construction sites and factories. Molten metal drips from containers while the scenes are interspersed with clips of car owners explaining what they look for in an automobile. “Where does a customer’s new car begin?,” asks the narrator at mark 02:26. “It begins in the minds of people — our first resource.” It also begins in auto manufacturer’s scientific research laboratories — with a montage of scenes flashing on the screen as the narrator explains how those settings serve as “gateway to the unknown” — as well as in factories and through the use of machines. We learn of the electrocoat paint process as a car is shown being dipped into a solution at mark 04:32, as well as an experimental “powered paint process.” A discussion of safety protocols soon follows with scenes of a salvage yard mixed with cars in factories being smashed in the interest of safety. Yet is is “people who make the system work,” says the narrator at mark 06:18, and we see a variety of scenes of factory workers going about their daily routines. Performance and design are always key areas of improvement in Ford automobiles, the narrator explains come mark 07:55, with engineers always taking customer concerns into consideration when designing and re-designing their product. The film takes its viewer into the design center at mark 08:28 to see the idea in action, from seats to AM radios to electric windows. Design and engineering draw closer together by mark 12:52 as a new vehicle is shown being constructed using both machine-made and man-made parts. There are scenes from test tracks and a series of manufacturing images. We watch as the vehicles rolls down an assembly line until at mark 24:52 as “the car has come to life.”