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Impressive Scale Engineering.... [PIC]

Rich Sufficool · 2026-09-07T15:41:16Z

In 1957, Ford kinda outclassed their more upscaled Mercury division with their Fairlane 500 Sunliner with its world's first retractable hardtop. It was $337 more than the soft top at $2942 and the novelty paid off with 20,766 Skyliners sold that year. Fully optioned the MSRP maxed out at $3500. Ford also used their "Thunderbird Special" as standard with a 4 bbl Holley carburetor that had a base horsepower of 245 HP with 2 options: the E-code 2X4 bbl @ 271 HP and the F-code Paxton supercharged 312 @ 300 HP. There appears to be many Skyliners still around with current auction estimates for high end examples are about $36,000. Franklin Mint released a model of this Skyliner way back in 1992 so the tech wasn't so good and the first run of the red and white had the wrong paint scheme on the rear fascia (now known as the 'error version'). In 2009, Danbury Mint released a more state-of-the-art replica that is beautifully engineered. It's so well done, I had to display it with the top partially deployed. The top mechanism works flawlessly with up top and down top yielding minimamal panel gaps.

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Chav

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09/09/2026 8:23 am

Posted by: @david-green

↑

A neighbour had one of these full sized in red and white. It certainly got a lot of attention. Great post as usual, Rich.

Regarding world’s first, I think Peugeot beat Ford in the 1930s.

1934 Peugeot 601 Eclipse.

Geoff Jowett, Greg and David Green reacted

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