What Model is This 56

478012


1956 Ford Mainline Tudor Sedan update model.
 
... hmmph ...

Something new learned everyday ... :D

NOTE Early production-year Mainlines have black rubber windshield & rear window moldings & no body-side moldings. Mid & late production-year Mainlines have bright-metal windshield & rear window moldings & rear body-side single moldings w/ spear tips or double moldings w/ spear-tips (that may enclose a 2nd Tone-Tone paint color & on roof).
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SOURCE - https://1956-ford.com/1956-ford-cars-all-brochure.html
 
Ford may have been using up the Customline stainless since the upcoming '57s were a completely different body and the '56 trim wouldn't fit. Just a guess. This was well before "just in time" manufacturing so they may have had several months of inventory on these items which represented an investment that might go to waste otherwise.
 
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It was just pointed out to me that the above picture of the updated model has 55/56 Mercury front fenders and tail lights.
Here is a picture of the true Updated model of the 1956 Two Door Ranch Wagon
 
Dobie Gillis said:
Ford may have been using up the Customline stainless since the upcoming '57s were a completely different body and the '56 trim wouldn't fit. Just a guess. This was well before "just in time" manufacturing so they may have had several months of inventory on these items which represented an investment that might go to waste otherwise.
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My thought was they had to jazz up the series as it was too PLAIN JANE and suffered in sales. They wouldn't have produced more than they needed for scheduled assembly.
 
Unless Mainline sales were so dismal they wound up with "extra" trim. Sales forecasting is somewhat of an arcane science and I'm sure wasn't any easier back in the day.
 
I still have the original dog dish hubcaps as shown in the above picture. I replaced them with baby moons of course. The 56 is long gone, but the hubcaps remain! I also have a set of the “full cover” hubcaps for another 56 I had for some time.
 
Don't know if you were aware of it but the '56 Customline models had the triangular-shaped bright metal trim stamped with the word "Customline". The Mainline models had this same triangular shaped stainless between the upper and lower trim strips, but it was blank.
 
Dobie Gillis said:
Unless Mainline sales were so dismal they wound up with "extra" trim.
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Nope. The Mainline trim is different than the Customline trim, in that the Customline trim had the word Customline stamped into the triangular shaped flat portion.
My speculation is that Fomoco may have planned to introduce the Mainline with body side trim from the beginning, but maybe they couldn't get enough of all the pieces needed in the beginning of the model year, so they went ahead and produced Mainlines without the trim, then went ahead and quickly generated a new sales brochure showing the car illustrated without the trim for the beginning of the model year and saved their original version with the trim for later, after the plant started getting in full sets of trim pieces. Just wild speculation.
I doubt it had anything to do with low sales due to lack of pizzaz. The Mainline cars went faster than hotcakes, trim or no trim.
 
The car in the picture has '56 Fairlane backup lights. Customline and Mainlines that had backup lights used the '55 style backup lights. Most had the delete plates same as '55 instead of backup lights.
 
Lamar Wadsworth said:
The car in the picture has '56 Fairlane backup lights. Customline and Mainlines that had backup lights used the '55 style backup lights. Most had the delete plates same as '55 instead of backup lights.
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That is true. Only the Fairlane models had the fancy backup light housings with the red reflector. All other '56 models that had backup lights used the '55 backup light housings and lenses.
 
Pech33 said:
What is this called? A Mainliner? I had a car exactly like this when I was 16 in 1964. 272, three on the tree (for a while) two door post. It was really engine smoke and not burning rubber going out behind it.
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Is that a 39 ford in your avatar?
 
Still hasn’t said what the data plate on the left door under the windshield says. The end of the vin will give how late in the year. Also color, and model.
 
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