Retractables

A ’59 retractable. (Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

My March 2015 issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine features Ford’s “Skyliner” retractable hardtops, a convertible, but its top wasn’t cloth.
It was a metal hardtop that folded and retracted into the car’s trunk.
No one had made such a car before the Skyliner. Convertibles were always a folding cloth top.
The ‘50s were a time of expansive confidence. We had made the world safe for democracy.
So Ford decided to do a retractable hardtop. They sold ‘em from ’57 through ’59.
The retractable hardtop was an engineering masterpiece. It had three motors, 610 feet of wiring, 10 solenoids, and many relays, circuit-breakers and locking motors.
Say that to this old bus-driver, and I think of our first wheelchair-lift installations. Relays and solenoids galore! But it had to work in a wet and salty environment.
Ford’s retractable hardtop didn’t have that.
Shortly after my stroke I was asked to review a handicap-van with a wheelchair lift.
I pilloried it. “It won’t work in this environment. That gizmo is right out there where salt can get it.”
Ford’s retractables have the reputation of being unreliable, but the owner of the car pictured disagrees.
“Everything still works,” he says. “So far only one motor has failed.”
The owner also says show-goers are amazed American car-makers made such a concept 58 years ago.
I never thought much of Ford’s retractable.
A gizmo.
The hardtop is small, and it’s on a body I never thought much of anyway.
To me it was the Tri-Chevys that always stood out: ’55, ’56, and ’57. They had that fabulous new V8 motor.
Yet the ’57 Ford outsold the ’57 Chevy; first time in years that Ford outsold Chevrolet.
Long, low, big and wide. That’s what car-buyers wanted.
And Ford’s retractable contributed; it was always a hit.
Although Ford had to give up on it. Not many sold.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. It ended my bus-driving.