This week's car is the 1959 Ford Skyliner. A car with a convertible hardtop.
Here is a commercial from the time period about this car, although the 1957 model featured in the commercial is slightly different than the 1959 model.
Isn't that a cool concept for a car? Unfortunately the car was more expensive than their soft top cousins and this was something that the public didn't care for.
The engineering for this car was amazing though. The car (the 1959 model) had three switches to activate the trunk to open. Once the trunk was open all the way another motor engaged to lift the hood out of the trunk and then a third engine caused it to settle into place. Another servo was then used to flipped the remaining "flipper" part of the hood. ( I looked up the word servo because I had no idea what it meant and the definition according to Word Web is a control system that generates more power from a small mechanical motion).
For putting it back into the trunk the car had two more motors to control it! That is a lot of motors for one car. No wonder it weighed over 2 tons!!!
Here is another commercial about the 1957 version of the car.
And here are a few more pictures that I took of this beautiful car.
In 1959 around 12,000 skyliners were sold. The sticker price for them brand new was $3,346.
The 1959 did have some slightly different styling than that of the previous years.
One difference was that it featured a eggcrate grille.
It also had a larger window and anodized trim ( which means that the metal that has been given a oxide coat).
While the Ford Skyliner might be big and bulky and was not a popular item at the time, it sure is a cool car and I like it. On that note here is one more advertisement from 1957 with Lucy and Ricky.
'Til next time have an amazing day everyone!
References: Thanks to Joe Reasoner that wrote the article that I read about this car from LeMay Marymount and thanks to The Auto Editors of Consumer Guide that wrote the article that from The How Stuff Works article for the information.
