“SKYLINER, the World's only hide-away-hardtop! One minute this car is a snug, all-steel hardtop with smart Victoria styling. Touch a button, the roof vanishes into the rear deck, and you're sitting pretty in an open convertible! It's the most exciting car in a generation!” This was the advertising text that sold the public on the new concept vehicle. Introduced mid-year, the expensive two-ton miracle of modern engineering found its way into the garages of over 20,000 customers in 1957.

The retracting hardtop was a variation of Lincoln’s Mark II that ultimately died upon the drawing board. Unfortunately, due to excessive assembly costs of the production version and limited sales, the short lived Mark II itself was axed after two brief years. However, Ford knew how to take advantage of the production and feature technologies that the Mark II introduced. The retracting hardtop Ford is a true testament to an age when Detroit thought it was invincible. Today, the Skyliners are highly coveted investments. These art-in-motion machines are crowd pleasers whenever demonstrated at shows.

The example offered here is well equipped with the “Thunderbird 292 V-8” engine and Ford-O-Matic transmission. It also sports power steering, heater and defroster, dual spotlights with integrated mirrors, and wide whitewall tires. This red beauty represents the last of the three-year production model and is highly regarded as an engineering and design milestone. Ford produced nearly 1.4 million cars for 1959. Of those, only 12,915 were retractible Skyliners. This retractable is ready to be enjoyed by the next worthy steward.