Batmobile and Beyond: Search High-Quality Images of Concept Vehicles in the Ford Heritage Vault

Ford’s archives team is releasing a trove of material – more than 1,600 images and brochures from more than 300 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury concept vehicles spanning back to Henry Ford’s experimental Quadricycle in 1896 – that shows the breadth of Ford’s imagination in the latest expansion of the Ford Heritage Vault.

According to Ford Heritage and Brand Manager Ted Ryan, concept cars have long been the way for automakers to showcase new technologies, designs or just flights of creative fantasy from automotive designers. The addition of these images and brochures to FordHeritageVault.com is expected to generate heavy traffic to the site, Ryan said.

The popular Ford archives site sees some 5,000 downloads of its high-quality images and brochures each day. Its content also includes Lincoln and Mercury vehicles, as well as archive material from Canada, Australia, Germany and other international collections.

Very few of the concept vehicles made it to production, Ryan said, noting they were created to test designs, features and other elements.

“The beauty of a concept vehicle is that it was the flight of imagination from the designer. It was the basis to test new thoughts, new ideas, new ways to build a car. There were new colors and packages, too,” he said. 

Among Ryan’s favorites is the Aurora from 1964, a future-looking station wagon concept with the comforts of home, including an L-shaped sectional velour sofa, a refrigerator and TV in the back.

“It was there to showcase what the family of the future could have,” Ryan said. “This was the station wagon era, there were no minivans yet. This was an idea of what a luxury station wagon could be. America was changing and that’s when concept vehicles started changing as well.”

Though fanciful, some elements of the Aurora did find their way into future products, Ryan said.

He is also partial to the Nucleon, a nuclear-powered concept car from 1958. 

“It looks like a car from ‘The Jetsons’ because it looks like a flying car,” he said. “Was Ford really going to build a nuclear-powered car? No, but we were stretching the boundaries of imagination.”

And no story about Ford-built concepts is complete without a mention of the 1955 Lincoln Futura, a working prototype that was sold to automotive customizer George Barris, who then turned it into the Batmobile used in the “Batman” TV series from the 1960s.

“It’s got that whole secondary story to its history,” Ryan said.  

Among other concepts being added to the Ford Heritage Vault are the Mustang I, Mustang II and Allegro, which all impacted the design of the original Mustang. There’s also the Lincoln X-100, which featured more than 100 innovations, including a built-in electric razor, early navigation system and rain- sensing windshield wipers; as well as the U260 Bronco concept from 2001, which looks similar to the current-generation Bronco. 

Ryan estimated that every member of his archives team would pick their favorites from the 1950s and 1960s because “they just look beautiful,” he said. “They speak to your soul when you see the beauty within the lines of the cars.”

Ford Heritage Vault launched in 2022 to an overwhelming response from Ford enthusiasts. The site boasts high-quality, Ford official images that are available to download for free.

“There’s a lot of websites out there that specialize in the histories of concept cars, but the photos aren’t great quality,” Ryan said. “We’re putting high-resolution images and brochures out there for our fans and enthusiasts.”

Click here to take a look at the Ford Heritage Vault. No CDSID or other log-in is required.