“We had a really good turnout of the Jeeps, about 20 or so,” said show chairman Paul Ebright. “Monday, the weather hurt us a bit, but we still had a dozen or so Corvettes, and overall, we had 115 cars on Monday and 80 on Sunday. The show participants were really great, dodging the rain on Monday and they all stayed. We really got soaked, though about 4:30.
“Russ Berry brought out his 1929 Ford tow truck and that was a huge hit. We featured it right at the entrance to Lincoln Park; it’s a great-looking truck,” Ebright added. The truck was painted black and gold and lettered for Coffey’s Body Shop, Berry’s company.
Quentin Mobley of Germantown brought two cars out, a 1957 Ford Skyliner and a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser. Both are pretty rare and unique.
“I’ve always liked the Skyliner; I liked them as a kid,” Mobley said. “They only built them for three years, ’57, ’58 and ’59, and they’re getting hard to find. I looked all over before I found this one. I found it in West Virginia, and it’s all steel, no Bondo in it. When I first saw it, I knew I’d buy it. It’s in great shape and only has 63,000 miles on it. And I love the way the top goes into the trunk.”
The disappearing metal top on the Skyliner was an engineering marvel for Ford, requiring seven motors, 10 power relays, eight circuit breakers and 610 feet of electrical wire to make it happen. And by having the top fold into the trunk, there was little storage space at all.
The first model year, Ford sold more than 20,000 Skyliners, but the novelty wore off, and just over 20,000 other Skyliners were sold in the next two years.
The Turnpike cruiser of Mobley’s is all-original, showing just more than 14,000 miles on the odometer.
To launch the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, the car was used as the pace car for the 1957 Indianapolis 500, and was the first pace car to be awarded to the winner of the race. Unfortunately, the Turnpike Cruiser was not much of a hit with the public, and Mercury discontinued the car in 1958.
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