|
This website is about my bumbling attempts to restore a 1950's vintage Dodge Coronet. It is a 1956 Dodge Coronet Lancer,
The factory shop manual refers to it as a "Special Club Coupe." This is a 2-door pillarless coupe, and it has these little
chrome flipper things that close over the tops of the windows when you close the door. Some people have told me that '50's
Chevy's had the same sort of thing, but I don't know anything about that. Apparently, that makes it more valuable than a 2-door
hardtop, with a pillar betwen the windows.
This picture is of a 1955 Hemi Coronet with a tri-tone paint job. I had originally thought that my car had this
paint scheme, but later found out it only had a two-tone paint job. Also the lower color looks a little too turqouise to me
to be original.
A 1955 Coronet 4-door. I think this is more like the original color.
Here's a rather fuzzy image of a Dodge sales brochure. My paint scheme is the tiny one to the left, above the large picture
at the bottom right. A 2-door with a dark blue top, and a light blue bottom.
This is a picture of a car that was recently on sale on ebay. It is exactly the way I want to paint mine, except it's
brown, instead of blue in the middle section. This one is a Cusrom Royal, which can be determined by the upswept "V"
of the chrome on the rear quarter panel. The Coronet trim goes straight down from there. It also has 3 chrome teeth
on top of either side of the front grill, and the optional wire whells. I think it sold for more than $20K. Nice.
In the 1950's, car manufacturers didn't have different "models" per se. Cars were referred to as the '55 chevy,
or the '57 Oldsmobile,etc. They had different trim levels, but the cars were basically the same. Keeping that in mind, there
were something like 18 different Dodge "models" in 1956. The major distictions were whether the car was a 2 or 4 door, station
wagon, etc. The basic Coronet model could be had as either a 2 or 4 door model, and had a choice of 4, or perhaps 5 engines.
These included the ancient 6 cylinder flathead, or the optional V8 engines. A poly head 270 ci engine (which is what mine
is, and is probably the most common) A 315ci "raised deck" poly head engine. This was accomplished by added more metal
to the tops of the cylinder banks, similar to the B and RB engines of the sixties. A 315 raised deck "Hemi Head" engine. And
at the the top of the heap, a special D-500 racing engine, which could be had with a 4 bbl carburetor, or three 2 bbls.
I don't think very many of these were made, and even fewer exist today. None of these cars would be considered "fast"today,
but back then they were pretty hot.
The 1956 Dodge Royal was the next step up the line. After that, was the Custom Royal, the top of the line model. These
were more likely to have the 315 Hemi engine. Also back in the fifties, station wagons were very popular, and they usually
had their fair share of options. I know of a 1956 Coronet Suburban station wagon, that has power steering and brakes, and
all the extra interior lights.
Here's a link to Allpar that lists the available options for these car, and an intersting story, too:
I do not pretend to be an expert on the various models and options on these cars. My car is kind of unique in that it
doesn't have a heater. However, it does have turn signals and an AM radio. It seems pretty strange to me that at one time,
a heater and turn signals were considered options, but hey, what do I know. I remember when I first started driving back around
1978, it was pretty common to see people sticking their arms out the window to make "hand signals." I doubt that most of these
young whipper-snappers nowadays even know what I'm talking about.
My intent with this car is not to restore it to showroom condition. But rather to get it running and roadworthy again,
After that, the next guy can spend billions on getting it perfect.
NEXT PAGE
|
