If Detroit’s dream-spinners had their way, everyone would have been driving under a plexiglass bubble-topped car since 1946. The endless images of fighter cockpits and space-agey flying-saucer-mobiles on the covers of Popular Science and other magazines presumed the inevitability of a glass-topped future. Unfortunately a few minor niggling issues, like the sun and lack of affordable air conditioning put the kibosh on that. But the idea wouldn’t quite go away, at least until someone took the plunge. And who would that be? Ford, which in 1954 issued two similar glass-topped hardtops, the splendidly-named Mercury Sun Valley and the Ford Skyliner. William Rubano caught and posted this shot of a Sun Valley at the Cohort.
As can be seen here, the tinted transparent roof was cautiously limited to the front half only.
I could dig this in our wet seasons. But I wonder how much fun it was for folks in the summer, given how rather rare A/C was in 1954 in anything but expensive cars. The roof was pretty heavily tinted (unlike in its ads), and a snap-in fabric sun screen was also available, but it was still an idea whose time had not yet come. Some 9,761 sun-seeking souls bought 1954 Sun Valleys, but after the 1955 version only sold 1,787 times, the idea was given a rest.
These look neat, but I assume they have the same problem as modern cars with tinted transparent roofs: Around midday on a hot, sunny summer day, you can feel the sun beating down on your heat even if the roof is pretty heavily tinted. I find it very annoying, compounded by the fact that while some of these cars have a pull-out sunshade, it’s not necessarily opaque, so it reduces the glare rather than eliminating it.
One small correction: The Ford version of this car was called Skyliner, a name subsequently recycled for the ‘retrac.’ In ’54, the Skyliner was part of the Crestline series (which at that time was Ford’s equivalent of the Bel Air) and was moved to the new Fairlane series in 1955. However, the ’54 Crestline was also available as a four-door sedan, two-door hardtop, or convertible, so not all Crestlines had transparent tops.
Yes; the late summer sun must have had its effect on me. Sunliner, of course.
The Sunliner was the regular convertible; the bubble top was Skyliner, like the later retractable hardtop.
Today is just one of those days……Skyliner; Take 43
Someone call for a Skyliner…? Thank you, thank you, I’m here all night, try the veal! (Thought my name refers to Nissan’s Skyline, not Ford’s Skyliner).
I saw one of these at the Mecum auction in May.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=72225704@N00&q=sun%20valley
The green tint of the roof was pretty intense. A buddy of mine has ridden in these and called the resulting green caste inside the cabin unpleasant.
An uncle had one I recall from my childhood. The green tint of the roof reminded me of the color of water one wouldn’t want to play in. It seems I remember the inner sunblock panel as being some sort of zippered thing, but that’s been a LONG time ago!
It may have been zippered for all I know.
It was indeed zippered, although there were some snaps as well.
I wonder where this car was found. These may have worked in places like Michigan, Maine or Oregon, but I will bet they sold next to none in Texas or Arizona.
I always really liked the Mercuries of this generation. They made an almost perfect midpoint between the Ford and the Lincoln, with an almost Mopar-like resemblance from top to bottom of the entire line.
Long Island, NY, says the dumpster behind and right. Check out the Cohort, Mr. Rubano has been most generous with his camera!
A little too much resemblance between ’53-’55 Mercury and Lincoln. I was a car crazy child who could tell you the make of anything a block away, but I never did get the hang of those Lincolns. Great looking cars, all of them.
Amazingly, I saw a few of these (both Skyliners and Sun Valleys) in Tucson as I was growing up. They must have been horrible in the sun, but there were still a few around in the sixties.
The Sunbelt is in effect a great place to slow-cook your car (esp. the interior) by parking it outside in daytime. Some recipes require temperatures in that range (100-200°F).
Just the same, however, a hot car is refreshing after working all day in a well-cooled building. At least for awhile.
Great idea if you want to look like a roasting Martian!These cars go for mad money compared to the more practical sedans,I’ve never seen one in the metal only in magazines.
‘In the plastic’ don’t you mean?
LOL actualy I’m sure I saw a model kit by AMT or Revell as a kid
I congratulate them for trying. This had to be easier to engineer than a sunroof that didn’t leak.
These are sharp cars, although, as others have noted, driving around without air conditioning in the summer wouldn’t have been much fun.
I recall a fair number of 1952-54 Mercurys around during the late 1960s and early 1970s – a time when cars from the early 1950s were relatively scarce on the ground.
I love these mid-50’s Mercurys. They looked like they were doing 60 mph just standing still.
When I was in college the dad of a friend who was a local had one. It was a nicely preserved original. At the time they didn’t command that much higher of a price than the standard cars. Since then I’ve seen a couple other Mercuries but I don’t think I ever saw a Ford version in person. I guess Mercury buyers were more likely to have enough extra money to afford it. Which really makes me wonder why the Sunliner continued on and became the retractable hardtop while Mercury didn’t get a version.
Wasn’t the retractable roof convertible originally intended to be a Lincoln but was given to Ford? (I recall reading that somewhere but can’t remember the source.) Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner for 1957 through 1959 seems like a complex idea should be foisted off on the halo brand Lincoln and not the price leader Ford.
There was a picture of a retractable Continental Mk2 in the recent Lincoln week,it’s gorgeous.The suits had a fit when they saw the cost and it was dropped but so as not to waste the development money it became the Ford Skyliner.
The retractable hardtop hardware was developed with a convertible version of the Continental Mark II in mind. When the Continental Mark II was cancelled, it was decided to roll out a Ford version in order to recoup the development costs. (I see Gem Whitman posted the same information!)
At the point it was conceived, the flagship brand was Continental (then a separate division), not Lincoln, but yeah.
Some of the Ford stylists had been suggesting something like that since at least 1948, though, so the idea had been floating around for a while.
Someone in western Washington has one that’s been redone in bright red, to the point of having the plastic roof portion tinted red. I’ve seen it at a couple of car shows.
I wonder if the tinted roof was color-coordinated. Seems like I vaguely recall green, red, and blue versions, depending on the color of the rest of the car.
Nobody sent us any to see if we’d like it 54s came in fordor and Flathead powered still the ancient throwback to Henrys overheating dunger of 1932. 55 was the first modern Ford out here with ohv but not in 2door bodystyle.
Interesting, U.S. ’54s got the Y-block, not the flathead.
I remember a blue-and-white Ford version that was still cruising around my hometown in the early 70’s. Then, the car got sold to a younger guy who painted it red and jacked up the rear end for the obligatory California Rake. That look did not suit it one bit.
I saw a Ford version at a small town car show last summer. All of the obligatory 50s crap hung all over it, plus a mildly hot rodded engine and modern wheels. Yawn.
Every time my friends and I see a full-size Ford or Chevy from the late 1950s or early 1960s WITHOUT a continental kit, fender skirts, side pipes, spotlight, etc., at a car show, we rejoice.
There’s some awful accessories,I’m starting to hate those weird fender guard/crash bar things as much as Continental kits.There’s hardly any tri 5s in plain vanilla at UK shows
I think a Continental kit is the ugliest period accessory you can put on a ’50s car. They look even worse on ’80s Eldorados and ’90s Town Cars! Bleah.
Had a neighbor with one of these of the Ford variety. It was new. I was 11 and probably remember less than I think I do. It was Kansas which has scorching summers and I don’t think it was successful sales strategy to give the sun an almost open door.
I had a friend with a 75 Grand Prix with glass T-Tops. Even with lots of tint and strong GM AC the top of your head would FRY on a sunny day. he got rid of the car pretty quickly.
Speaking of T-Tops, whatever happened to them?
Very tough to engineer them so they weren’t a pain in the butt as the car aged. A friend of my Dad’s had a 1987 Oldsmobile 442 that had every single option except T-tops because as he said; “I never had T-tops that didn’t leak.”
Funny we don’t notice things have gone.A Firebird with T Tops was a must have car when I didn’t need hair dye and could walk and breathe in stretch jeans.I see a few T Tops at shows but they vanished in the mid 80s I think
Speaking of T-Tops, whatever happened to them?
The 70’s ended……
They lingered well into the ’80s, though, and I think some of the Japanese models still offered them into the ’90s (Nissan 300ZX, for instance).
Well, yeah, the F-body had them all the way until 2002, but T-roof mania probably peaked around 1978-1979.
I had a 1985 300ZX Turbo coupe with the T-tops. If you removed the liner panels the heat build up inside the car was tremendous and to reaffirm what FSO says, the sun fried your head. Virtually every 300ZX had the T-tops during this era. My cousin bought a 1984 anniversary edition 300Z coupe new and had to special order the car to get one without T-tops. It was a very rare car; I can’t remember seeing another one like it here in SoCal.
A good friend had one of the first 280Z cars with the turbo and T-top (’81?). A veritable rocket when the turbo kicked in, and the T-tops seemed like such a cool idea at first, but the practicality of dealing with them was totally nil. We constantly struggled with them, off, then on, then off again. They had special bags that you would insert them into, then they strapped into the rear trunk/package space. A complete pain in the butt.
… and then came the Buick Skyhawk Astro Roof.
I was going to point out the same thing, Lincoln also offered this same top option on the last of the huge Continentals.
I never knew this existed as a kid, until I saw and ad for one in an old National Geographic, I was bewildered by the glass roof, and so much glass! It was like discovering that they had color TV during the Civil War……
Such interesting cars. I love the name too!
Many years ago a customer at the gas station I worked at had a Canadian Meteor version of this same car. He had owned it for many years and at some point had tired of the plexiglass roof and had it primed and painted over!
By the time I saw the car it was 25 years old and he was kicking himself, as these cars were starting to become “collector” cars even then. It was in good shape, and had the original flathead in it. I don’t know how many were made, but it had to be a pretty rare car even when new. I wonder if he ever figured out how to get the paint off the roof panel?
I saw a Crown Vic “glass top” when on vacation in KC in June. I always liked these, in fact, my friend who lived in Times Beach, MO in the late ’60s had one. Yellow, just like the Merc. He was going to give it to my buddy and me, but after we thought it over for a week and decided to take it – it needed an engine – when the next weekend we went down there, it was gone! He had already tossed it in his favorite dumping hole in the Meramec River!
Boy, were we ticked-off!
In the mid-90s at a car show in our local Wally-World parking lot, a couple had TWO of them on display!
I told them my story, and when I said my friend dumped it, the man jumped out of his chair and exclaimed to me: “Where is it?”
I told him the story and he and his wife got the saddest-looking faces I’ve seen in a long time!
One of these days, I’ll relate the account of the ’56 Nomad that got away from us, too!
There was always something about the ’54 Mercury that struck a chord with me, they were a nice refresh of the ’52-’53 design. I was so enamored of those sliding aircraft lever controls flanking the steering wheel (and did anyone notice how enormous that steering wheel is?). I remember seeing these at Lynch Lincoln Mercury in Santa Monica as a child, my dad was on a quest to replace the aging family ’49 Dodge, which he did the next year with a ’55 Olds 88, but I kept badgering him, unsuccessfully, to get the Mercury. I actually saw my first Sun Valley in Palm Springs a year or two later, where we often went back then to visit my grandmother. And one of our neighbors had a relative who visited often in his ’54 Skyliner, I was so intrigued, whenever I saw it in their driveway across the street I would hurry over to check it out. A great looking car, ahead of its time, as it turned out.
This was the year that Ford also made some transparent-hooded “showroom” display cars spotlighting the new overhead-valve V8:
http://www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=1052731
Here’s a photocollage of a 1954 Mercury Sun Valley, at a small car show near me, obviously run by Chevy fans since a fair-to middling grade light-custom 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, a car as common as dirt, won “Best of Show” over this.