For the vast majority of its life, this Ford Skyliner has languished in this barn. It has been in the seller’s family since it was new. His mother parked it decades ago and never touched it again. His father started to do some work to it, including having the bumpers restored and even found some spare parts for it, but that was as far as he got. It’s still sitting in the barn but needs to go before it deteriorates any further. You can find this dust covered Galaxie here on craigslist in Berry, Kentucky with an asking price of $5k.
Clearly, its time in this Kentucky barn hasn’t been easy on it. There is some serious rust in the rockers and on the front fender. On the upside, it comes with the front fenders from another car, which should help with restoring it. Hopefully, the underside is solid but you won’t know for sure until you can get it out of the barn.
The seller put together a nice video of the car with more of the story. It’s definitely worth watching.
There’s no word on the condition of the mechanicals. It still has the 332 V8 under the hood, but they don’t say whether it turns over or not. I would assume the worst, but hope for the best. I’m also a bit curious about the condition of the hardtop mechanism and interior.
To really judge the condition, you will have to pull this Ford out of the barn and give it a proper cleaning. With any luck, the rust is contained to just the areas we see in the video. That’s a big if, but you won’t know until you look it over in person. All I know for sure is that these Fords are awesome and this one looks like an interesting find. Being a legitimate one owner barn find is definitely amazing, so hopefully, someone saves it and preserves its story.
Not sure of its restored value, but sure would be a cool ride.
Be interesting to see what the rear quarters are like. For 5K, hard to go wrong. Wealth of parts.
What a waste..WHY do people do things like this??
Because when it was parked, it was just n old car. They never gave a thought it would be worth anything. Just as us who had old Goats, Stangs and all the others. Yes, I still wish I had my 64 tri power Goat.
THIS…is a true barn find! Exciting!
Couple of things. If you watch the video, the guy who is doing the walk around seems to know nothing about the car or cars in general. That is ok, however, it seems strange since his mother bought it new so the car has been around him almost his entire life. He looks about the same age as the car, maybe a little younger. He does not even know how to open the hood and thinks the car has running boards? Gee. Just the way he talks would make me either run off or just hand over the money and tow the thing away as fast as possible. Some people just give you that funny feeling where you want to stay away. How could you not know a single thing about something that has belonged to you for almost 60 years? As for the car itself, a good bath would do wonders.
I know its hard to believe but some people as they grow from children to adults could absolutely care less about some of their parents’ stuff. I think my kids might be that.
Lou, not to be a language Nazi or anything but, if your kids “could absolutely care less” about your stuff, that means they do care. If they don’t care, they “couldn’t care less”. Just something that always bugs me. Sorry, had to say it. LOL
There are people like that though. I had a step-grandfather who was smart as a whip (he was an accountant) and I would consider him to have been quite worldly. However, outside of putting gas in his car, he knew absolutely nothing about cars. It wasn’t that he was dumb, he just didn’t care. My grandmother always used to make fun of him about that.
Amazing that an oil filter was once optional equipment, or at least a feature worthy of being called out. “It has left AND right headlights too!”
Couple other things……
The 1st pic has a “window” above the barn door. The video the window is not there.
He says it’s been sitting on the cement floor there since 1980 or 81 “and it’s now 2015”. 2yr old video?
It look like that old barn in photos has bin covered with new plades of metal. The photos must be older than that video.
When fender and rockers look like that, its for shure also rodden in the buttom. Nice find, but it need almost everything, exept bumpers. And maybe they are also rusty again. And engine is for shure frozen.
I do hope your comment is a joke: bin, plades, shure, rodden, buttom, exept.
If not, I’m just at a loss.
Sorry my bad english. Im Danish.
Great observation Jesper. The barn has been redone after the photos and it looks like the car was never moved during that process.
1:39 in the video ….. aahhgg
An actual barn. An actual find. Who knew?
Isn’t this why we get up every morning?
Every day the three “D’s” push old cars out into the daylight .
(Death, Debt, Divorce).
Break that lock, muscle that door open and let the fun begin!
I bought a 7 Litre parts car from a guy in Ohio that was restoring a ’58 T-Bird. He pulled the 428 from the 7 Litre and disguised it with the valve covers and air cleaner from the 352. Would make a nice upgrade on this rare car, too.
Let’s get this car away from the barn and the narrator of the video! I’m at a loss as to what to make of all this. When he opens the back lid, showing the pristine geranium/salmon color that always looks super on these cars, I wept a little. The fact that someone also began the process by stripping another 59 means that person probably passed before anything could be done. The redone chrome has probably flash rusted, and the rust at the forward edge of the passenger fender means this car was driven and road grime was “driven” into that crevice. The rockers (running boards, whatever) show signs of driver rust, not sitting-on-concrete rust.
I’m from Dayton, Ohio. The dealer, Stengers Ford, where this car was sold new was in business until around the mid 2000’s. It was torn down along with Don Kremer Lincoln-Mercury to build a Wal-Mart. They dominated the corner of South Dixie drive and Dorothy Lane. It was sad to see them go.
It would be nice to see this ole’ Gal back on the road.
12k restor just for the roof mechanism and then 40k for the rest. they only go for 50k fully restored.
We’re all on this sight because we are car people. I have a friend who doesn’t understand it, but see’s & enjoys hearing people like us talk about our shared passion. I’ll bet most of us don’t understand butterfly collectors. My kid’s have their own passions.
When restored these ’59 retractable can be a beautiful car. I had a chance to buy 3 of these at one time from a guy who was running a small parts business off his property in Nevada City, CA, It was summer of ’79 I was there to buy bumpers for my ’54 GMC at the time and saw these parked on a fire road on the property, they were all complete and not to bad condition wise, think all were down for mechanical issues, if I recall correct he was wanting about $500 ea. I sometimes think back about that and say “If I only knew” lol, I never went back after I got my bumpers. Hope the buyer of this ’59 has some deep pockets as it will be one pricey car to restore today!
It doesn’t get any more “barn find” than this.
The mechanics on these cars were very problematic when they were new, I know guys that had these cars and could not keep the tops working, constantly needing repairs. There were similar problems with the sixties thunderbird convertible.
Gone.
Great New Friends and Wonderful old car! Dry concrete floor and building!!
Ps chrome and trim all there and “perfect !! Was still wrapped in paper!! Met the original owner !! Thanks Barnfinds!! JC
Congratulations, JC! Post some pictures!