With an Electronically Retractable Hardtop, This Ford Was a 1950s Transformer

Today, such a mechanism is pretty common and hardly mind-blowing, but have you ever wondered where it all began?

A manual-operated retractable hardtop was conceived by Ben P. Ellerbeck on a Hudson coupe more than a century ago. The concept was then applied by French innovator Georges Paulin in 1931, and his electronic system dubbed Éclipse was later used by Peugeot for their 401D Éclipse Décapotable This was a convertible coupe built in collaboration with coachbuilder Carrosserie Pourtout where Paulin, a former dentist, was hired as lead designer.

In the U.S., the retractable roof was first introduced by Chrysler on its 1941 Thunderbolt show car. Six years later, a small New York startup called Playboy marketed a limited-series convertible that came with a multi-piece, self-storing hardtop, but the first mass-produced automobile to offer this feature was introduced by Ford in 1957.

The brainchild of engineer Gil Spears, head of Ford’s Advanced Design Studio, the system was originally intended for the 1956 Lincoln Continental. However, this would have made the car prohibitively expensive, so management made the decision to hand the project over to the Ford division and apply it to the successful Fairlane model line.

While Spears is credited for proposing this feature, the man who made it possible was Ben Smith. A young engineer that came from crosstown rivals GM, Smith was given just 18 months to design and perfect the mechanism.

Dubbed Hide-Away Hardtop, the complex system that he put together in record time did not employ hydraulics. Instead, it comprised seven electric motors (six for 1959 models), four lift jacks, a series of relays, ten limit switches, ten solenoids, four locking devices for the roof, and two for the trunk lid, as well as 610 feet (185.9 m) of wiring. All these components allowed the front panel of the roof to fold down and, together with the entire structure, it smoothly retracted under the rear trunk lid.

To accommodate the retractable top, the rear section of the car had to be lengthened, but the 118-inch (2,997 mm) wheelbase of the standard Fairlane 500 remained unchanged. This feature also severely impacted trunk space which was limited to a textile basket that could barely accommodate a suitcase when the top was retracted.

Still, the Hide-Away Hardtop was a marvel of engineering for the era, especially since the driver could raise or lower the top from inside the vehicle with just the push of a button. People flocked to dealerships to see it in action and even if it was Ford’s most expensive model, the Skyliner sold like hotcakes.

The car was powered by a small-block V8 that was available in several configurations. For 1957, the standard motor was a 272-ci (4.5-liter) that made 190 hp, while the optional versions were a 292-ci (4.8-liter) or a 312-ci (5.1-liter) capable of outputs that ranged from 200 to 245 hp. For the 1958 and 1959 model years, a couple of larger displacement V8s were introduced. The biggest, most powerful of the two was a 352-ci (5.8-liter) that could make 300 hp.

Built for three years in 48,394 units, the Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner was the first convertible coupe to reach four- and five-digit mass-production numbers. It continues to be a fascinating example of automotive ingenuity, 65 years after it was introduced.

You can watch the retractable hardtop in action below thanks to the awesome video posted on YouTube by KompactKarKorner.