Let's Ride!

THE MAGIC SKYWAY

Voice of Narrator:

I am your guide through this adventure. As you travel, other guests are hearing these words in their own native language. ["The Ford Motor Company Welcomes You" is repeated in several languages.] Yes, in any language, wherever you drive, your Ford, Lincoln or Mercury car is always a front-row seat for The Big Show.

Please remain seated at all times. Keep your hands and arms inside the car. And no smoking please.

And now, The Magic Skyway takes you back through the time barrier. Backwards millions of years to the dawn of life on land.

This is the world that was. A world that trembled under the tread of giant beasts. Here, millions of years unfold at a single glance.

Brontosaurus. Stegosaurus. Triceratops. They ruled a world of perpetual summer. But here, birth and death walk hand-in-hand.

This was the most fearsome reptile ever known. "King" of all the dinosaurs.

Years of violent natural turmoil doomed the mighty reptiles. Now, a new world rises with the dawn. And a new creature stands before the challenge of the universe: man.

At first, caveman really wasn't much of a man.

Here in his humble home he began a new era: The "do-it-yourself" craze.

He harnessed nature's fire to cook his food and warm his ... uhh ... house.

He invented language to communicate his most important ideas.

One day, these caves would tell the story of man's adventures. Here he recorded his great deeds .

And now, the "Man of the Hour" Introducing the inventor of the round wheel.

Now at last, man is free. Unchained from his cave. Free to move forward toward the future and a new destiny.

Thousands of years race by. Man applies the wheel to travel, explore, discover.

Faster and faster across the pages of time, the wheels race towards a new tomorrow. A tomorrow where man's loftiest hopes and dreams can become reality.

And now Ford's Magic Skyway becomes a Magic Carpet carrying you aloft through time and space to the threshold of tomorrow. A vision born out of man's long journey. The promise of The Future.

Voice of Walt Disney:

This is Walt Disney speaking. Our Space City is a distant dream. But all such dreams must begin in the minds of men. Men like the scientists, engineers and automotive designers of Ford Motor Company.

I hope you enjoyed our show and your ride on The Magic Skyway in a new Ford product as much as I've enjoyed the Fords I have driven through the years.

Now step out and see a world where tomorrow is being created today.

Voice of Narrator:

Ladies and Gentlemen. Prepare to debark. Do not attempt to leave the car until the attendant opens the door at the unloading platform. Thank You.

Remembering

THE MAGIC SKYWAY

Frank Donnantuono:

I was about 4 1/2 when my family went to the Fair, so I don't have a lot of clear memories, except for one encounter that has locked itself into my mind to this day. Even though I was so young I was a bona fide car nut and knew a lot about different makes and models. I couldn't wait to see the new Mustang at the Ford Pavilion.

When we got on the Magic Skyway ride, my parents, grandparents, sister and I got into a dark blue '64 Galaxie convertible with a white interior -- this I remember clearly. I begged to sit behind the wheel, and as soon as I got in, turned on the radio. Just as the ride started moving, I heard a voice on the radio intone, "Hello, this is Henry Ford, and welcome to the Ford Magic Skyway." Well, even at my young age, I knew Henry Ford was dead! Totally spooked by this ghostly voice talking through the radio, and combined with the looming darkness of the tunnel, I screamed from one end of the ride to the other.

I told this story to a co-worker once who [is] the same age as I am. He related a story about going to the Fair in '65. He remembers that his family sat in a red '65 Galaxie convertible and he begged for the driver's seat also. In his case, he started turning the steering wheel to pretend like he was driving. Unfortunately for him, many other Fairgoers must have done the same thing because he said that the wheel came off in his hands. Not wishing to anger his parents, he held the wheel against the steering column with all his might throughout the ride. When the time came for them to get out of the car, he wouldn't budge and when the operator asked him to get out, he started crying hysterically, figuring that he would be held responsible for breaking the car.

Rich Post:

I drove my parents NUTS switching the language channels on the dashboard radio in front of me.

Peter Stathes:

One of my memories of Ford and some others was sneaking in on the VIP line. Being only 12 in '65 I would look for a young couple and we would walk up and stand next to them. It looked like we were one big family. Only once did we get caught. We tried this at many other VIP lines. Why wait?

Greg:

I also had the daylights scared out of me at the Ford Magic Skyway. I was [6 1/2 years old] then ... but if you remember the blinding multi-colored lights as your car entered, that was enough to scare me to death. What can I tell you? Glad to see I was not the only one scared. After a few times being on it I grew up and enjoyed the dinosaurs.

markallenmaine:

I do recall of the Ford pavilion, seeing new Mustang convertibles on the rotating displays, someone giving me a "Maryland" [souvenir pin] rather then "New Hampshire," where I lived, and getting to sit in the driver's seat in a Galaxy 500 (I think it was white). I too was a real nut about driving, so I was really ticked when I discovered that the steering wheel was locked and didn't turn!

Hoodlock:

While riding the Skyway my friend, Dale, reached out over the door of the car to grab part of the display. It must have been in the early days or most likely a slow day. I say this because Dale and me were the only ones in the car. Think about that, just two young teens left alone in a brand new car. Well anyway, as he reached over the door of the car his hand hit one of the wires that ran along the sides of the Skyway. No sooner did he touch it he gave out a yell, screaming about an electrical shock. He was convinced that this was designed to be a deterrent, intended to keep kids like him in their place. I believe it was only some static charge. But then again, it wasn't me who got zapped.

Bradd Schiffman:

A snapshot shows our family happily tooling along the Magic Skyway, my brother and I in the front seat of a new convertible, with my parents and sister apparently in the back. My sister's clawlike arm can be seen reaching over the front seatback in a foreshadowing of her future role as our family's self-appointed backseat commander. After navigating through our glass tunnel, giving us a great view of the Fairgrounds, the ride plunged into darkness, then opened into a room where a Tyrannosaurus was fighting a Stegosaurus on a rocky ledge, so that they looked like they would fall right into your car as you passed underneath. Just as we safely made it past them, the ride stopped. After waiting some time, and thinking to lighten the mood, I turned around and said, "Gee, I hope my playing with the pedals didn't cause the ride to break." My mom exploded: "Then keep your #@!& foot OFF THE PEDALS!" I quickly turned back around and began staring straight ahead. Mom was obviously having a bad day, and in all the excitement I hadn't noticed. The five of us spent the next 15 minutes in icy silence while a giant plastic Pterodactyl shrieked overhead as it circled endlessly on what I could now make out was a black wire suspended from a rotating black arm in the corner of a black ceiling. The radio kept repeating the same two sentences over and over. The illusion of being in a primeval jungle had pretty much vanished.

Encore!

THE MAGIC SKYWAY

Illustration: Franklin McMahon

Source: © Ford Times, Vol. 58 No. 5, May 1965

Voice of Announcer:

Ladies and Gentlemen. Please remain seated at all times. Keep your hands and arms inside the car. And no smoking please.

Voice of Henry Ford II:

Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Henry Ford II. Welcome to Ford Motor Company's Magic Skyway. An adventure created by the incomparable Walt Disney. A voyage through time and space. From a dark and distant yesterday to a bright and promising tomorrow. May you all have an entertaining trip.

Voice of Walt Disney:

Thank you Mr. Ford and hello friends. This is Walt Disney speaking. I'll be riding along to point out some of the things you're going to see from your front-row seat in Mr. Ford's automobiles.

Thanks to some old-fashioned magic we call "imagination," this Ford Motor Company car will be your time machine for your journey. Carrying you far back in time to the dawn of life on land and transporting you far out into the future.

But that's getting far ahead of our story. Right now we're leaving the world of today behind. So if your imagination is ready, here we go.

We're traveling backwards in time. Many millions of years in fact. Back to a day when giant creatures thundered over the land and soared like gliders across the sky. You're probably familiar with some of their names: Allosaurus. Edopasaurus. Pterodactyl. Not exactly the kind of pets you would keep around the house. In fact, most of them were kind of ... well, kind of ... "supercalifragilisticexpialidotious" and that's as big as they come!

Our ancestors never heard the sounds you're about to hear or saw the sights of the world you're about to visit. We're moving back long before man arrived on our planet. Our story begins just ahead in the warm primeval seas that covered the earth millions of years ago.

It was always summer here, even in Alaska. And a swamp like this attracted whole families of touring dinosaurs like those tall Brontosaurus. Father Brontosaurus over there weighed sixty-thousand pounds. And he ate his vegetables every day. In fact, that's all he ate!

The Teranodon flew with wings like a bat. But he was still a reptile like all the other dinosaurs. Even those armor-plated Triceratops hatched bouncing baby reptiles.

But armor was no protection from the "King" of all the dinosaurs. Even his name was frightening: Tyrannosaurus Rex.

And now as a changing earth ends the rule of the reptiles, The Magic Skyway takes you forward in time once more toward the shadow of a new arrival: man.

This was a strange new world. But man embarked on his adventure with a new power: the ability to think and reason.

Before long, the caveman discovered how to harness nature's fire to cook his food and warm his ... uhh ... home.

Illustration: Franklin McMahon

Source: © Ford Times, Vol. 58 No. 5, May 1965

The things he learned, like fire-making and language, were passed from father to son ... and to a friend in need!

His hunting and tool-making skills helped trap the Woolly Mammoth and gave his world its name: The Stone Age.

Caveman recorded his adventures for posterity on the walls of his home ... (probably when his wife was out.)

There's a fellow we would all like to meet! The inventor of the first wheel. As you can see it was a "trial and error" process: Square wheels. Oblongs. And finally the round wheel.

The wheel gave man a new freedom. Now he could leave the caves behind and travel on to seek his fortune in the wide, wide world.

Thousands of years raced by as man applied the wheel to explore the world. And then he discovered new ways to make the wheel work for him. There were water wheels for generating power and iron wheels to span the continent. Wheels within wheels for industry's machines. Wheels for the automobile and the airplane. And just as the first wheel freed man from his cave, today they have carried us to the beginning of still another new age.

And now The Magic Skyway becomes a highway in the sky carrying you across the boundless night and out into time and space.

We've come a long way in our journey with man. And here were are, on the threshold of tomorrow. Man's achievements in science and industry have carried us here. And like the blast-off of a space vehicle for the moon and beyond, man's achievements have challenged our hopes and rocketed our dreams beyond the horizon.

Perhaps, someday, we'll be riding rocketships like those flashing overhead to anywhere in space. Perhaps, someday, we will drive jet-powered vehicles over weather-controlled highways in the sky like the spiraling tubes around you.

But all such dreams begin in the minds of men. Men of vision, faith and imagination. Men of science and industry, education and the arts. As we have seen along The Magic Skyway man is always on the move, searching and dreaming beyond the horizons of today and bringing the promise of tomorrow ever closer to reality.

Now our journey is almost at an end. On behalf of your host, Ford Motor Company, and the creative staff of the Walt Disney Studio who dreamed up this adventure, I hope you have enjoyed your trip on The Magic Skyway. Thanks for joining us!

Voice of Narrator:

Ladies and Gentlemen. Prepare to debark. Make sure you have all your personal belongings. Do not attempt to leave the car until the attendant opens the door for you at the unloading platform. Thank You.

THE FORD ROTUNDA

New York World's Fair 1964-1965

This unique building has a glass rotunda with 64 towering pylons at one end and a large exhibition hall at the other. It contains a variety of exhibits, a number of which were designed by Walt Disney.

Source: Official Postcard by Dexter Press, West Nyack, NY