The Ford Galaxie was the primary full-size car built in the United States by the Ford Motor Company for model years 1959 through 1974. A version of the car was produced in Brazil under the names Galaxie 500, LTD and Landau from 1967 to 1983. As often is the case with American cars, the model names shifted around from year to year.

But the Galaxie was always Ford's full-size car. In the late 1960s, the low trim Fords would be the Ford Custom and Custom 500, while the high end would be the XL and LTD, but the Galaxie was normally the high volume counterpart to the Chevrolet Impala. Some Galaxies were high-performance, racing specification machines, a larger forebear to the muscle car era. Others were plain, family sedans. 1959 saw the introduction of the Galaxie name in Ford's model lineup at mid-year. That year, the Galaxie range of six models were simply upscale versions of Ford's long-running Ford Fairlane with a revised rear roofline that mimicked the concurrent Thunderbird. In keeping with the era, the 1959 Galaxie was a chrome and stainless steel-bedecked, two-tone colored vehicle, the very image of late-1950s American automobile excess. Among the models was the Skyliner Retractable, featuring a retractable hardtop that folded down into the trunk space; this feature, impressive but complicated, expensive and leaving very little trunk room when folded down, did not last long, being produced for only three years - 1957 through 1959. Power retractable hardtops have since been used by luxury manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and Cadillac, but in all these cases the vehicle was a two-seater, allowing a much smaller top mechanism than the Skyliner's. Not until 2006, when the Pontiac G6 convertible appeared, did another mass-market model with a rear seat appear in this category.