What can be said about Kevin Greenwell?
He’s had more American cars than some of us have had
Christmas dinners but he does know a good car when he sees one.
Here we celebrate 40 years of Ford’s magnificent retractable,
with his latest acquisition…
Words and Photography: Steve Hathaway
We first came across Kevin a few years ago at a Motorvatin’ USA show where he was driving a beautiful two-tone, red and white 1955 Ford Sunliner convertible with all the toys of the period. Few years and a few cars went by and Kevin sold his prized possession. The next car we saw Kevin with was a yellow and black 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger, with a 318cu.in. block under its matt black hood. The Dodge was sold and for a while Kevin didn’t own an American car at all. However, it wasn’t long before another piece of Detroit metal graced the Greenwell garage, this time a Seventies Chevy pick-up.
Kevin soon acquired a white late-Sixties Cadillac convertible and ‘blinged’ it up a little with some big chrome rims. The Caddy went the way of so many of his cars, and he sold it. ‘This mad Irish bloke chased me around Billing last year for the entire three days pestering me to sell the car. At the time I didn’t want to sell the Caddy as I had only just bought it.
‘Anyway, I took his number and didn’t think about if for a while,’ he continued. Then one day Kevin was looking through some Classic American magazines and began to think about getting another Fifties convertible. ‘I began to think, if I could sell the Caddy and the pick-up I could do it. I love the Fifties period, from the music to the cars. So, I found the bit of paper with the Irish guy’s number and gave him a shout. Thirty seconds later the bloke said that he’d have it. That was on a Monday and by Friday he was sitting on my sofa with 10 grand in his socks,’ he chuckled. ‘I couldn’t believe it, he had money every where!’ A visit to a newsagent and several quid lighter, Kevin had bought all the usual magazines to thumb through looking for his ‘new’ car. Armed with these and an internet connection and with some cash in hand from the sale of the Caddy, rims and the pick-up, Kevin began his search for another Fifties convertible.
Kevin found a few Fifties Fords that he liked but on closer inspection they just didn’t have that extra little something that makes you say, ‘I want that!’. Then he remembered an ad he had seen in an old Classic American and spent a few hours looking through his collection until he found the ad he was looking for. The ad was for a 1957 Ford Fairlane Skyliner with a retractable roof. So he thought ‘what the hell’, and called to see if it was still for sale.
Kevin made his call and left a message on an answerphone. Three or four weeks later he got a call from the owner of the ’57 Ford who apologised for not getting back to him sooner as he had been on holiday. After confirming that he still had the Ford and checking out the details of the car, Kevin made an appointment to travel down to Newquay and see if the car lived up to its ad. A viewing was set up and after an eight hour or so trip Kevin was standing in front of this rare Ford.
Introduced in 1955 as Ford’s full-size car and named after Henry Ford’s Fairlane mansion, the Ford Fairlane came with six different bodies, from the Crown Victoria to the convertible Sunliner. All models featured the then rakish ‘Fairlane’ chrome stripe and optional two-tone paint. The Fairlane sold well despite being overshadowed by the Chevys of the day and was pretty quick off the mark when powered by a V8. For the following year Ford introduced a four-door hardtop Victoria and two new engines, the 292cu.in. Y-block V8 and a 213cu.in. six. In ’57 the Fairlane gained a higher trim level, the 500. The new model was lower, longer and wider and with traditional Fifties style the car was the epitome of the American automobile of the age.
The big news for ’57 was the introduction of the Fairlane 500 Skyliner which featured the world’s first fully retractable hard roof, and it was the only car to have this unique convertible roof until the Nineties, when Mercedes relaunched the concept. It was a classic Fifties idea and Ford’s designers hoped that the buying public would recognise the innovative design and buy the car. Unfortunately, the roof design was complicated and prone to problems. It also cost about $400 more than the softtop convertible and in the Fifties that was a lot of money.
The car’s designers designed the roof to be shorter than on other models and the front section of the roof was hinged to fold over and be more compact when stored in the trunk. But it still ended up with a longer and higher rear deck and panel. The Skyliner also differed from the other models in the line-up as it had a V8 as standard under the hood and its gas tank was repositioned behind the rear seat instead of under the trunk floor. Ford produced 20,766 of these hardtop convertibles for 1957.
For 1958 the entire Fairlane range received a facelift, a three-speed Cruise-O-Matic self-shift transmission and two new V8 blocks, the 332 and 352. Ford produced only 14,713 Skyliners for 1958, down 7000 cars on the previous year. During 1959 the Fairlane range was completely redesigned and a new trim level called Galaxie was introduced. The Fairlane 500 Sunliner and the Skyliner hardtop convertibles became part of the Galaxie range. Only 12,915 Skyliners were produced, a further drop in production on the previous year - this would be the last year of production for the Skyliner.
Kevin Greenwell’s Skyliner was the 32nd car off the Dearborn production line on August 21st. Its original colour was Colonial white with black and white trim and interior, which it still had when Kevin bought the car. So who painted the car two-tone I ask? ‘The guy I bought it from,’ Kevin said, ‘He had the car for 17 years and after 10 years he decided to do a restoration on the car, which included the paint but he left the interior and trim black and white. That was in ’94 and after he painted it, he and a few of his mates shipped their cars back to America and drove from New York to California – Man what a trip! I would have loved to have done that.’
One of the things that Kevin did first was to take care of the interior and try to marry it to the two-tone paint. ‘It took me about a month to do the dash and match it to the Willow Green on the outside,’ he said. ‘Then I decided to do the interior, which Kate, my girlfriend, was going to treat me to for my up and coming 40th birthday. So, myself and a friend spent the next three weeks trying to decide on what colour scheme would suit the car. We kept the same design of the seat, including the two-tone look and my friend even made up a dummy seat so that we could finally decide on the finish and I eventually went with the gold look, which I think looks good with he rest of the car.’
When you see the car for the fist time you might think that the paint and interior are a bit over the top, but that soon dissipates the longer you’re around the car and when the roof is down, the sun is shining and you’re speeding along the open road everything seems to gel.
When we stopped the Skyliner attracted a crowd of all ages from kids on bikes to grannies pushing Zimmer frames. Admittedly, most of them didn’t know what the car was except that it was a big American car but that didn’t matter. What mattered was they were looking at a piece of automotive history, that they were enjoying looking at the car in the flesh and not in some private collection or museum with ropes around it and ‘don’t touch’ signs… and the best bit? It put a smile on every face there!
When Kevin raised the roof – literally - it was a joy to watch their faces, as the car came alive and huge pieces of metal began to whirr and move, and when the roof appeared and slowly lowered itself into place they couldn’t believe their eyes. Everyone grabbed for their camera phone and clicked away and kids dragged their parents to have heir photos taken with the amazing machine.
At the end of the day as this 50-year-old Ford rumbled its way down the road in the sunshine, turning heads wherever it went you can understand why Kevin loves these Fifties cars. As we took in the sunshine and the sound of the Ford’s V8 312cu.in. four-barrel Y-block we asked Kevin what plans if any does he have for his Skyliner? ‘Basically keep it standard, keep as it came off the production line and keep it tidy,’ he shouted over the engine. ‘I’d like to do some more detailing, a bit of cleaning and the like and maybe do the underneath. But I got made redundant just after I bought the Ford, so I can’t go mad on it ’cause I just don’t have the spare cash. I just want to keep it nice really, take it to a few shows, see if I can win anything and enjoy it for what it is - I mean, what more do you want on day like this?’ he asked, looking at the blue sky. What more indeed?!
