One of the more interesting cars to come out of the 1950s was the Ford retractable hardtop. For 1957-58, it was based on the Fairlane 500, and for 1959 on the new Galaxie 500 nameplate. Using a myriad of motors and wires, the car’s hardtop roof could be retracted all the way into the trunk and then put back up again. This 1959 edition of the Skyliner has been in a barn for more than 50 years and “ran when it was parked”. Now, a project, this vintage Ford can be found in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, and here on Facebook Marketplace for $4,900. Once again, “Zappenduster” finds us a cool tip!
When the model was introduced in 1957, it was marketed as the “Hide-Away Hardtop”. And it may have been the most gimmicky of all the gizmos used by car manufacturers in the day. If you wanted the benefits of a convertible but also the security of a steel roof, the retractable hardtop was what you wanted. The problem was that when the roof was retracted, there was virtually no trunk space for anything you had to carry. And the complexity of the wiring and so forth probably drove dealers crazy if you brought one in for warranty work.
Ford sold more than 48,000 copies of the Skyliner over its three years. But executives elected not to continue the model with the 1960 redesign, perhaps because of all of the red ink that the Edsel debacle had caused them. The seller has the 1959 edition, which saw sales of just under 13,000 units. We don’t know its story other than it was put away in the early 1970s and likely hasn’t seen the light of day since.
We don’t know which V8 lies under the hood of this beast, but they ranged from 292 to 352 cubic inches, depending on how much power you wanted. This Ford has an automatic transmission, but we gather the car is mechanically toast after all these years. Plus, we’re told there is some roof and deck lid damage, and rust surrounds the lower extremities. The interior is pretty rough, and you never know if any furry barn dwellers have called the car home. The car has been listed for several weeks, with the price cut from $6,500 to $4,900. This restoration will require a sizeable bank balance.
Boy, I just don’t know, this isn’t your everyday simple restoration. I read, the top mechanism is incredibly complex, with 6 electric drive motors, 10 solenoids, 13 relays, and 610 feet of wiring. Even so, it was very reliable, and one had to remember to duck your head as that front piece folded under. My 2nd cousin had a ’57. In Milwaukee, it was considered a novel idea, where soft tops were cold in the winter, but for the 7 sunny days, it was nice to have a convertible. I remember, the 1st time, we watched in amazement, with the clicking and whirring, it was truly from the future. I read, the retractables losses were lumped into the $250 million dollar Edsel fiasco, and Ford lost money on every retractable sold. They sure made up for it with the 60s models however.
Sadly, this may be a parts car.
Sad. These are unique but you can practically HEAR this one rusting away.
What about the Deere in the background?
Figures you’d notice that, what is that, an “A” model?
As Howard stated restoring this rare retractable would be a major project. The roof mechanism is just so complex. But, the car is complete.
The bodywork alone would put you underwater. Then you only have to tackle everything else. A really rich man might have pity on it.
I thought the tractor looked like an Oliver
those rockers are only the beginning from what i see. i am sure the underside is as bad or worse. real shame. they better slash that price to 2k. poor pics of damaged areas doesn’t help either
as a teenager my best friend had one we soon figured out how to repair any electrical problem with the top
There’s a guy in our car club has one of these. He thoroughly enjoys it and insists that it isn’t all that difficult to get the top operating mechanism to work properly. “Just don’t get in a hurry,” he advises very strongly. He’s had to for going onto 20 years now and it’s been to a lot of shows…
It also had stainless steel fender skirts with carefully lodged razor blades underneath to deter theft.
When I was a lot younger I would have been thrilled to have one of these cars. The whole top mechanism always fascinated me and I’d have loved to work on one to see how it all went. This would be a great project car for anyone with the patience to tackle it and learn the way Ford did things.There are plenty of parts for this car available with a bit of searching and if you took your time and paid for the work as you went along you’d have a very fine car to drive around.
Distributor in the front and more valve cover bolts than a Y block. 312 or 352
Were there 312s that weren’t Y blocks?
All 312s were Y-blocks. For that matter, all FE engines were Y-blocks as well. It’s all in the main bearing location and the oil pan rail…
It’s a 332 or 352 FE. A 312 would look the same as a 292 — both are Y-blocks. These being high-end cars and thus highly-optioned, many had the 352.
HARD PASS on this rustbucket !!
John Deer B
Man oh man, If i was younger (73) & my health was much better. I’d jump in this in a heartbeat.. Damn, those were beautiful master pieces from FOMOCO.
When I worked at a Ford dealer in the 60’s, a customer brought one of these in that was just restored, but could not get the to work, after 48 hours of billable labor it was fixed. Keep in mind the labor rate was only about 18/hour back then.
One word: Don’t.
“For 1957-58, it was based on the Fairlane 500, and for 1959 on the new Galaxie 500 nameplate.”
Nope. There was no “Galaxie 500” nameplate, new or otherwise, in ’59. That name didn’t appear until 1962. What you had in ’59 was the Galaxie, introduced as the new top series partway through the model year. Early in the model year, Skyliners had Fairlane 500 badging on the rear fenders and decklid and — like the ’57s and ’58s — that’s the series they were “based on.”
Partway through the ’59 model year, Ford put the “Thunderbird-style” roof on four Fairlane 500 models (2- and 4-door sedans and hardtops) to create the new top-line Galaxie series. They also moved the Skyliner and Sunliner to that series giving it six body styles in all. These cars had “Galaxie” (not “Galaxie 500”) badging on the rear fenders. They still said “Fairlane 500” on the decklid but they were not “Galaxie 500s” as there was no such name in ’59 (or ’60 or ’61). In those years the Galaxie was the top series with the Fairlane 500/Fairlane below it.
In ’62 Ford created the Galaxie 500 name for the top series after the Fairlane and Fairlane 500 nameplates were moved to the new intermediates. Those names were then replaced on the full-size cars by moving the Galaxie name down a notch and adding the new Galaxie 500 name to the top series that had been the Galaxie. Hope this clarifies.
This would be really neat if someone were to put the effort and expense to restore.
Had an uncle that collected these,,in fact one of his cars ended up on the calender that the (retactable) club put out,,but he said once you learned some its quarks it wasn’t hard to find the problem,,and if you knew some electrical,,it wasn’t that hard to fix