Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner

The Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner was a two-door full-size retractable hardtop convertible that Ford Motor Company built for the 1957 to 1959 model years. Its folding roof, marketed as the Hide-Away Hardtop, was exclusive to the Ford brand and made the 1957 Skyliner the first retracting hardtop convertible truly mass-produced by a car company, with close to 50,000 sales. The roof folded in two sections under the rear decklid and used seven reversible electric motors, four lift jacks and 610 feet of wiring instead of hydraulics, though it used up most of the trunk, which limited sales. Production fell from 20,766 cars in 1957 to 14,713 in 1958 and 12,915 in 1959, when the car joined the new Galaxie series and carried a 292 cubic inch V8 engine.