Seeing this single shot of a ’59 Ford Galaxie posted at the Cohort by Simon White reminded me theta we’ve never done a proper CC on the ’59 Ford. How did theta happen? It’s quite a story too, as it was very successful, almost outselling the all-new batwing ’59 Chevy. In fact, it would be the last time Ford sold more than a million full-size cars until barely squeaking past that milestone in 1969.
And there is the Galaxie, the new Thunderbird-roof top line model that was introduced sometime after the start of the model year. That’s a detail I had quite forgotten. Which helps explain why this car is badged somewhat confusingly as a Fairlane 500 Galaxie.
I’ve only ever found and shot one curbside ’59, this poor old Courier wagon that had been towed here briefly, and then disappeared. I did write it up at the old site, and thought about just re-running that one here, but my knowledge and feelings about the ’59 Ford have evolved considerable since then. It’s just not suitable any more.
So we’ll just have to wait until I or someone else finds a suitable ’59 Ford, a Galaxie coupe, preferably.
Theres a nice metallic blue with white top 59 Galaxie around here it overtook me recently on one of our figure 8 roundabouts, I was a bit too busy to get any pics, next time I see it I hope I’m not in my truck working, I need at least one spare hand to operate my phone, Nice cars and quite rare here now.
There’s a ’59 Fairlane 500 4-door lurking in my neighborhood. I’ll try to find time for some additional photographs.
My own ’59 Ford is a 1:24 scale Country Sedan promo by Hubley – a deskside classic.
Let’s see if this photo will post.
The late fifties are just not a good time for cohesive styling on any car, at least in my eyes, but the 59 Ford is just another iteration of the 1957-58 version. The Mopars really changed the game early (but with crappy construction), the GM versions were all over with 3 different bodies from 57-59, and Ford just kept on by slapping doo-dads onto the existing car. I never noticed the change in rooflines in early 59, and while the TBird roof works well, I like the other roof on the 4 doors.
It all kept the idea that one could change minor items from year to year to ensure that you had a reason for folks to go out to buy the latest version.
“Ford just kept on by slapping doo-dads onto the existing car.”
I think you might be surprised. I am not sure that a single piece of sheetmetal carried over from the 57-58 on this. 59 also deep-sixed the short wheelbase models (Customs) and kept the long wheelbase Fairlanes.
At one time I had thought that this was a straight re-use of the 1958 Mercury body and it may still be that the 58 Merc was the starting point for this restyle. With a million units expected Ford could certainly afford plenty of changes to it. In any case this is an intriguing car.
Thank you for the correction. I vaguely remember reading the article, and it does make sense that the old Mercury body was recycled into the mainline Ford. In some senses, it was an adaptation of a common style language, but using a slightly different body as a base with gingerbread to make it seem different.
I wonder what may have happened if Ford would have brought out the 1960 model a year earlier. Would the 1960 Ford sell better or worse than the batwinged 1959 Chevy? Or did the sins of the 1957 Ford build quality come back to haunt them?
In my mind, I picture a car from this era sitting in the driveway of a mid-Century Modern home and deciding if it fits stylistically or not. Most late 1950s cars do not, but early 1960s models do, especially the 1961 Lincoln (IMHO). It seems that cars were slower to adapt to the new aesthetic.
Talking about the 57 Ford jogged my memory…..my father bought a new 57 Ranch Wagon. It barely lasted a year when he traded it in on a 58 Plymouth. You can imagine how that worked out!
He got disgusted and bought a used 57 Chevy. Lasted many years.
I don’t know this era of Ford history well enough. You have to wonder if the 1 year life on this substantially new 59 Ford body was a panicked reaction to the 59 Chevy that Ford people undoubtedly knew was in the works. Was the 60 moved forward from a planned 1961 start?
The 1960 Ford, as originally planned, was to be a heavily facelifted version of this car.
When Ford received advanced blueprints for the 1959 Chevrolet, it panicked, and completely redid the 1960 model, basing it on an advanced styling concept (the Quicksilver).
The 1960 Ford wasn’t very popular, although the all-new Falcon stole a fair number of sales from it. Still, Ford probably would have been better off sticking with a facelifted version of this car for 1960. The build quality of that car most likely would have been better than what Ford did bring to the market.
Well, I’m with you JFrank on the ’59 LOOKING like they magnetised the body near a random pile of the latest dads and doos. There’s many of everything, and none of them really proportioned to the car.
I don’t think I’ve seen a ’59 Galaxie for at least a decade, and possibly two. Which is a shame because I think they’re among the best looking Fords of the 1950’s.
At the time I remember them looking a little old-fashioned and ‘upright’ next to the lower, wider, and more outrageous GM offerings (looking at you, bat-wing Chevy). Although the ‘Thunderbird roof line’ was still (and always) eye candy. And Ford’s transition to 4 window sedans vs. GM’s awkward clinging to 6-window designs made the big Fords look fresher in that aspect to my eye.
Overall, despite their facelifted mid-50’s DNA, they still seem to me a more attractive and better-considered design than their totally new ’59 GM contemporaries.
I like the ’59 Fords. I saw them occasionally when I was younger. In the woods near my house was this example (same model as lead photo) which sat for decades.
I recently learned that the “all new” ’59 Fords are actually a re-adaptation of the 57-58 Mercury body. You can see it in the non-Galaxie roofline especially. McNamara trying to save money again!
Recycling body structure components was really coming into it own then, with the increasing costs to develop a completely new body, it was more common than we’ll ever know.
Maybe, but the 1957-60 Mercury station wagons have the same greenhouse which is not the same as Fords. The 1959 Fords had a unique one year greenhouse, including probably the windshield. There do not appear to be any shared body panels between the two. The front doors would be the most likely shared part (like on every single sub-Imperial Chrysler product) if not any others but they are not the same. They may share some internal structure.
Photos aren’t posting.
Junked in the woods:
Interesting to note then Ford Australia continued the 1959 body for the Custom/Fairlane for 1960.
http://oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Ford/Ford/1960%20Ford%20Fairlane/index.html
Ford Aus continued right through to 1962 with this body, with kits from Ford Canada for local assembly. It is universally known to this day here as the Tank Fairlane, partly to distinguish it from the “compact Fairlane” from ’62, and partly because it largely thought to be a ridiculous-looking car (not to mention a rustbucket). If you look at the second page from Old Car Brochures, the incredibly badly-drawn gold/brown coloured one is sort of how they look in my mind, and clearly for the artist too! Australians who could afford big US Fords loved their cars, but these aren’t considered to be their finest hour by anyone much.
Wow. This car takes me back to my youth. This car’s identical twin was parked in the driveway of a house that I walked past every day walking to and from school. It was owned by an older couple whose “good car” was a 65 Galaxie 500 sedan which was kept in the single-car garage. The brownish 59 (that was getting pretty rusty by then) sat outside, apparently for “emergencies” which never seemed to happen. I think I saw it move one time.
I could never decide if I liked this color or not. The one I passed was dull from the weather, which didn’t help its appearance. But I liked the car’s lines. Nobody decorated a big squared-off rectangle like the Ford Motor Company of the late 1950s. Because I was so used to this Galaxie roof, the lower-line Fairlane roof looked odd to me when I first noticed the difference. It is not often true, but I think the 4 door sedan was the best looking of the whole line, except for maybe the convertible.
The owners finally got a used 73 LTD about 1975 or so. The turquoise 65 was moved outside and the old 59 went away.
Our area was lousy with ’59 Fords of all models from Skyliners to Custom 300s, they seemed to be one of those cars that defied the western New York road salt and passed through many hands before hitting the junkyard ten years later. Our neighbor Zeke had two he drove to his job at the Tonawanda, NY Ford plant, his brother-in-law had a plain-Jane blue Custom 300 Tudor as a young married Navy man. A now locally infamous cousin had a pretty blue and white Skyliner. The ’59 Ford was a fixture in the automotive landscape of my youth.
Its a pleasant design, more cohesive than the pseudo-Thunderbird ’58’s were. In retrospect, had they wanted the ’59 to look more modern with the headlights in the grille plane, they should have swapped designs with the ’59 Edsel sans central grille. The large taillights centered in the big ‘pie-tins’ were pretty to look at following a ’59 at night.
A car with a lovely rear end, attractive if conservative side view, and a front that looks like a brick with a grill. Close but no cigar. Still, in ’59 of the big three, it’s the one. The Chevy was bat-wing wacky, the Plymouth with its fins was too too, so the Ford it would be.
My dad had one , ours was yellow and white 4 door hardtop
It was a galaxy 500 with the t bird roof . It didn’t have fairlane anywhere on it
We saw others that did say fairlane galaxy 500
Maybe my dad’s was a later build . I remember it having vacuum wipers and a tube set radio . Imagine the kids today waiting for the tubes to warm up before using the radio
Yes, the Galaxie name came along later in the model year.
I wonder if you are mis-remembering this. There was nothing called “Galaxie 500” until 1962. In 60-61 it was just “Galaxie”.
59 was a bit of a mashup. The Galaxie was not in the first printing of the brochure and the Fairlane 500 was the top model. The second printing featured the Galaxie and referred to it as “Galaxie”. However, every one I ever saw still had “Fairlane 500” over the huge chrome V on the decklid in addition to the Galaxie script up high on the rear fender.
I have wondered if there was some manufacturing reason to keep the Fairlane 500 labeling on the back. The gold “500” letters nestle down onto that big v-shaped piece, so perhaps the V was not designed to be seen without those numbers over it? The alternative would have been yet another emblem or to not drill the holes on Galaxie lids which would be a production/assembly complication.
It may have officially been the Fairlane 500 Galaxie.
The first Chevrolet Impala was officially the Bel Air Impala. It then became a separate series for 1959.
One of these has been on my bucket list for a while. Part of it is having found a driver condition ’59 Skyliner in a grocery store parking lot the one time in the last seven years I didn’t have a camera on me. Ugh.
My father-in-law purchased a ’59 Ford new, powered by a 292 with a two-speed automatic. One of his older brothers also purchased a new ’59 Ford, also powered by a 292 but with a three-speed. Having driven both, my father-in-law said the automatic did hinder the 292 quite a bit.
The other night I was thumbing on the television and found the premier episode of “Crime Story” that ran on NBC for two seasons in the 1980s. The premier episode starts with a car chase involving three ’59 Fords. I wasn’t familiar with the ’59 at the time I saw this episode when first aired, and I’ve had a thing for them ever since. The opening shot going down the flanks of the ’59 (in the first part of the scene) does make the pulse quicken.
I never was much of a fan of the 1959 Ford body style…except for the unmarked MCU ones on ‘Crime Story’.
(hmmmm…maybe time for a ‘Cars of ‘Crime Story’ C.C.?)
A lot of “Crime Story” heart movers on Youtube. We had a ’59 Ford Fairlane 500 hardtop. I was learning to drive. My Dad had me behind the wheel as we left a Howard Johnson’s. I put the car in gear and, looking out the back, I stepped on the gas. Of course they had not standardised the PRNDL and I almost put the car through the HoJo front window! I was used to our 55 Olds with Hydramatic. I was surprised to learn here that the “59 Ford was based on the truly bizarre 57-59 Mercury. These cars particularly the ’57 Ford and Merc with the goggle eye headlites rusted about as fast as you could make the payments. I recall helping a friend wash his 1958 Custom and almost cutting my hands on the rust on that thing
Good to see comments on 59 ford . When I was younger l owned a 59 hardtop convertible . It was a great car . Not gas mileage , 7 . From time to time I think about that car and wish I still had it . Not sure it would fit in my garage . Also had a 58 convertible . I sold it for a $100 .
I’ve always liked these Fords. I was aware of them from a very young age, primarily because Matchbox offered a station wagon version in its 1-75 range.
A Galaxie in all black, and equipped with white walls, is a very classy car – better than that year’s over-the top Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials.
They were nice cars. Not a delta-wing rocket ship like a Buick, a deranged Batmobile like Chevy, a vulgar Cadillac, or a Lark. A nice ride.
I liked the Mercury more. It’s styling just seemed to have fit the squareness of the design better than the Ford.
A nice car easily overlooked. My neighbor had a Skyliner with the overly long trunk deck lid. An orange salmon color with white trim.
The ’59 Ford made for a very attractive station wagon.
Much more pleasing-to-the-eyes than the awkward roof line and tailgated ’59 Chevy was.
There’s a light blue 4 door that was recently towed into Kirchayn Auto Parts, Cedarburg WI (just north of Milwaukee.) It’s rusty but looks to be complete, with a very nice front end and bumper on it!
[1959 Galaxie] In ”The Wide C-Post and the Fashion Process” (Journal of Marketing, Jan. 1965), William H. Reynolds traces the wide C-pillar from ‘55 T-Bird and ’56 Continental Mark II through its gradual adoption in other Ford lines as well as GM and Chrysler (the big jump is from six ‘60 models to fourteen ‘61s. He writes, “During the 1958 model year, several months prior to the introduction of the 1959 models, Ford management became alarmed by rumors about the 1959 Chevrolet. Indications were that the car would beall new in styling and wider and longer than most medium-price makes. Ford cast about for some means to counter this threat in the time available and decided upon a top series model with an especially luxurious interior and with the ‘Thunderbird roof,’ that is, a wide C-post. The object was to carry over the glamour of the Thunderbird to the regular Ford car….The top-series Ford with the wide C-post was introduced several months after the 1959 model run had begun. It was promoted and advertised as the “Galaxie” series, and was a styling hit….much of the credit for Ford’s success, both inside Ford and generally throughout the industry, was given to the ‘Galaxie roof.’ Other manufacturers began developing plans for similar roofs of their own.”