Ford’s 1957 Skyliner looked like an ordinary Fairlane 500 hardtop until you pushed a button. Then the solid roof unlatched, folded its front edge under and disappeared into the trunk. The Ford Skyliner retractable hardtop did it with seven electric motors and hundreds of feet of wiring, decades before folding hardtops caught on.
It wasn’t a show car, either. Ford sold the Skyliner to the public for three model years, from 1957 through 1959. Nearly 50,000 people bought one before the company dropped the idea.
Here’s how the roof worked, what it cost buyers and why it disappeared after only three seasons.
A roof built for a Continental
The Skyliner’s roof didn’t start life as a Ford project. According to Curbside Classic, engineers had been developing a retractable roof since 1952 for the 1956 Continental Mark II. A Continental study found that Mark II buyers would pay a 30% premium for one. Even so, the Mark II program dropped it.
Chase Morsey Jr., a Ford brand product manager, learned about the work in 1954. He was already thinking about a retractable for the 1957 Ford, the site reports. Then, when engineers showed a prototype to Robert McNamara in November 1954, McNamara approved it for production.
How the Ford Skyliner retractable roof worked
Most convertible tops of the era moved with hydraulics. The Skyliner’s didn’t. According to the Martin Auto Museum, which owns a 1959 example, Ford used seven reversible electric motors instead. The 1959 cars needed only six.
Those motors had plenty of help. The museum lists four lift jacks, a series of relays, ten limit switches and ten solenoids. Four locking mechanisms held the roof in place, and two more locked the trunk lid. Altogether, it adds, the system used 610 feet of wire. The roof itself was steel: Mac’s Motor City Garage notes that Ford sold it in 1957 as the “all-steel Hide-Away Hardtop.”
Curbside Classic counts the parts a little differently. Its tally is seven motors, eight circuit breakers, ten relays, thirteen switches and the same 610 feet of wire. Either way, it was a lot of hardware for one roof.
For the driver, it took one button. According to RM Sotheby’s, the hardtop unlatched itself from the windshield frame. Then it folded and tucked under a long, flat trunk lid that lifted on its own to make room. The Martin museum adds that the front section of the roof was the part that folded.
The whole cycle was quick. RM Sotheby’s says the driver could turn the coupe into a true convertible in about 25 seconds. In 2014, the auction house sold one such 1957 Skyliner at Hershey for $115,500.
What the trunk gave up
All that machinery needed somewhere to live. As a result, the Martin museum says, the roof took up most of the available trunk space when it was down. That hurt sales, even though the mechanism worked reliably.
Ford had to move other parts out of the way, too. The museum says the fuel tank stood upright behind the rear seat, which also improved safety in a rear collision. Curbside Classic adds that the spare tire went under the floor.
What it cost
A Skyliner was not a cheap Ford. Curbside Classic gives its 1957 starting price as $2,942. That was $337 more than the Sunliner soft-top convertible and $603, or 26%, more than a Fairlane 500 hardtop coupe. In fact, it put the Skyliner close to a Buick Special Riviera convertible on price.
It was heavier, too. According to the same source, the Skyliner weighed 380 pounds more than the Sunliner and ran three inches longer. Under the hood, the Martin museum lists a standard 292-cubic-inch two-barrel V8 rated at 200 horsepower. Curbside Classic says a 312-cubic-inch V8 was the option.
Sales, and why it ended
The Skyliner went on sale in April 1957, according to Curbside Classic. The site adds that the first one went to President Eisenhower on April 14. Buyers took about 20,760 that first year. The Martin museum gives 20,766, while Curbside Classic gives 20,760.
After that, sales fell. Both sources agree on 14,713 cars for 1958 and 12,915 for 1959. In 1959, the Martin museum says, the Skyliner moved into Ford’s new top-line Galaxie series.
Then Ford ended it. Curbside Classic says the retractable hardtop was dropped after 1959, but parts of the system lived on in the 1961 Lincoln Continental and Thunderbird convertibles. The museum calls the Skyliner the world’s first retracting hardtop to be truly mass-produced, though it notes Peugeot built retractable hardtops in series in the 1930s.
The idea came back decades later. Curbside Classic points to Mitsubishi’s 1994 3000GT Spyder and Mercedes’ SLK, shown as a concept in 1994 and built from 1996. Meanwhile, the Martin Auto Museum in Glendale, Arizona, lists a 1959 Skyliner in its collection, one of 12,915 built in the car’s final year.
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