Fred Davies drove his 1959 Ford Skyliner on the first Sunday in October. That wouldn’t be remarkable except that Fred has been working on his car since buying it in 1972 and this is the first time it has been roadworthy. The restoration isn’t quite finished. But Fred doesn’t care. He just wanted to drive his car. He’s had a lot of help from his friends lately. This consummate classic car restorer has worked on dozens of cars for other people over the past three decades. Fred has come to be known as the ‘go to guy’ to fix these complicated hideaway hardtops.
The Ford Skyliner was designed for Ford in the mid 1950’s by a then 27-year-old body engineer named Ben Smith. Ford was heavily involved with concept cars and bringing innovations to the marketplace. The first Skyliner was a 1954 Ford model featuring a plexiglass see-through roof over the front seat. But Ford became intrigued with the idea of having a two-door hardtop car that could convert into a full open car with the touch of a button. The Ford executive group originally planned the hideaway hardtop for the 1956 Lincoln Continental. But Ben Smith got the design job after convincing the company that he could build the Skyliner as a specific model in the regular Ford car series to be introduced in 1957.
Smith used a series of small electric motors and screw jacks controlled by limit switches to perform the seven individual functions that make the huge trunk open backwards and the top to fold into the back. It took just 40 seconds to turn this two-door hardtop into a full convertible. Today, many of the world’s finest cars have refined Smith’s design to make much more compact ‘retractable’ convertibles. Ford manufactured approximately 48,000 of the Skyliner hideaway hardtop models from 1957 to 1959. They were largely viewed as a gimmick car and Ford ended production when the novelty was wearing off and sales became sluggish.
For Fred Davies, the 1959 Skyliner is the prettiest of the three-year run for this model. He bought the car from high school friend Randy Jensen who ran an auto wrecking business in Langley – east of Vancouver. The car had been sideswiped on the driver’s side and then had spun into a pole causing damage to the other side and rear of the car. It was a sad sight when Fred Davies finally picked the 1959 Skyliner up in 1972. He paid $500 for it. Since then, he has been fixing the body and gathering new parts to make this car look like the day it hit the showroom floor. He had collected and installed almost all the options available that year. He was getting closer to completing the restoration when he was stricken with cancer earlier this year. His biggest fear was that he would never drive the car that had been with him for more than three decades. But his friends weren’t going to let this happen.
So a group of car enthusiasts and friends led by his son Dale, a service manager with Langley Volkswagen, decided to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Material for a new interior was ordered from SMS Fabrics in Oregon, the radio was sent out for repair, the engine was worked on and made to run and Dale rebuilt the transmission that was slipping badly.
Others worked to make the complicated top mechanism work and install many of the parts that were never put on the car. This car was going to be finished. In mid September, friends of Fred Davies gathered at a Fraser Valley farm to display their cars alongside the beautiful Wedgewood Blue 1959 Ford Skyliner that had been part of Fred Davies life for so long. It was a surprise birthday party for the car’s owner. His son had brought the partially completed car over on a trailer and the site of his car surrounded by all his friends brought tears to the very surprised owner’s eyes.
After the birthday celebration, the work continued. Vancouver upholsterer Al Decker and visiting upholsterer Nando DeFrancesco from Annapolis Custom Upholstery in Nova Scotia pitched in volunteering their time to cut, sew and install the complicated tri-color seat upholstery in just one day.
Then on the first day of October, the BC Ford Retractable Club held a cruise through the Fraser Valley in warm fall sunshine that ended with a tour of the Stave Falls power generation dam in Mission. Fred Davies arrived driving his car for the first time.
The first thing he did was to retract his Skyliner’s top in a salute to all the people who had helped make this happen.
---alyn edwards
--- alyn edwards
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