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How Michigan man’s classic car ended up on Detroit Lions’ Sports Illustrated cover

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How Michigan man’s classic car ended up on Detroit Lions’ Sports Illustrated cover

NEW HUDSON − Ryan Talaga bought a classic car four years ago, never dreaming that it would make the cover of a national sports magazine this month along with Detroit Lions football stars in and around it.

The 1957 Ford Fairlane convertible was a perfect prop for the Sports Illustrated football preview cover – which features Lions quarterback Jared Goff leaning against the driver’s side, right tackle Penei Sewell behind the wheel, and receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown perched in the back, along with the headline: “DRIVE TO REVIVE.”  

“It worked well with the color combo and car I had,” Talaga said of his Fairlane, which is colonial white with a powder blue interior. “It was a match made in heaven I guess. It’s super humbling and an honor to be included and a part of it.”

Talaga, a member of the Spark Plugs Auto Club, first heard from a fellow car enthusiast in May that Sports Illustrated was looking for a 1957 classic car.

Everything about his car – from the year to colors was ideal for Sports Illustrated’s vision, which includes a headline on the cover that reads, “THE RESURGENT LIONS: Right Team, Right Town, Right Time.”

The magazine includes a prediction the Lions will go to their first Super Bowl and win it. The team’s last NFL Championship was in 1957.

At the end of July, Talaga, who is also a Lions season ticketholder, drove his Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner retractable hardtop down to Allen Park, where the Lions have a practice facility. On July 23, he assisted in staging the vehicle on the field before the players arrived and the hour-long photo shoot began, which besides Goff, Sewell and St. Brown also included their teammates Alex Anzalone (linebacker), Taylor Decker (left tackle), and Aidan Hutchinson (defensive end).

In a video clip of the photo shoot, Hutchinson gets behind the wheel of the Ford and says, “I’m actually looking for something like this.”

It’s unclear how many of the cars are still available. Ford produced fewer than 21,000 Fairlane 500 Skyliners in 1957 and at the end of the model’s production in 1959, there were less than 50,000 on the road.

Electric clocks were standard and Talaga noted that the factory model would have had a black and white interior, but one of the things he liked most about the car when he purchased it off of Facebook Marketplace was the powder blue interior.

Talaga, an account manager for a Novi automotive supplier, has been around vintage vehicles since he was a baby, as his father Dave is a classic car enthusiast, and is happy to have one of his own.

While he has no plans to drive it to New Orleans if the Lions do indeed make it to the Super Bowl in February, he is up for driving it in a championship parade in Detroit.

Regardless of what happens, Talaga expressed his gratitude to Sports Illustrated for the “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to mingle with the players and summed up in the SI video clip what being a Lions fan has meant to him:

“It’s one of those things that has made me a tougher person,” he said. “You know, it really builds your character. It’s kind of: You get knocked down, you get back up, you keep fighting and that’s what life’s all about.”

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Contact reporter Susan Bromley at sbromley@hometownlife.com or 517-281-2412.

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