Cover Stories
My first encounter with 1956 Fords was when my dad bought one. I was ten years old. It was a Country Sedan station wagon. My dad gave this car to me eight years later. It was my first car to drive, it needed body and motor repairs. I got it on the road after four months of work in time for my high school graduation. Later that fall returning from stock car races I blew a right front tire and found the ditch. The car didn’t come out of this encounter well.
Needing a replacement car, I cruised the used car lots. I spotted a peacock blue 1956 crown Vic at Walt’s car exchange. After begging for the money to buy this I finally got it home. I had two minor body incidents I sold this car. My next vehicle was a 1959 police interceptor, which I drove until I went into the army from 1966-1968.
Fast forwarding to1993 some buddies of mine talked me into getting into restoring a 56 Ford Fairlane Victoria. I bought two cars, one 1956 Ford Fairlane Victoria, and a 56-sedan car for parts. The 56 two door Vik hard top had been used for drag racing in Ohio. Several months later, and lots of late nights in the garage my 56 black Victoria was road ready. I had restored it to its original color and body style. It did not have the original 312 Y-block motor and transmission. Irene and I drove it to the Detroit convention, and later to the convention in Sandusky, Ohio. We also did several local shows and just enjoyed going for drives in it.
Since we have been members of CVA we hadn't seen a Custom line Victoria on the cover of the Fomoco Times until Tom & Susan Witham in April of 2020. (Nice Car). So, here's our story of our Blue Vic.
We are Billy and Linda Huffman of Middle Tennessee.
We have been Chevy people for years owning 1955,56, and 57's and the last one was a 1950 Chevy Belair.
Two years ago in April, while in Pigeon Forge Tennessee at a car show, we spied Blue Vic. A 1956 Ford Custom line Victoria and it was for sale. It caught our eye with it's beautiful blue and white exterior and gorgeous blue and white upholstery. We fell in (I want it), not I love it. There were a lot of cars for sale that year so we continued looking around but couldn't get Blue Vic off our minds. Needless to say, we went back for the second look. We didn't take any money with us for we weren't planning on buying a car. We called the owner and had him come down and talk to us about it. Billy wanted to test drive it. The car belonged to a classic car dealer. He called Blue Vic a Custom line 300. He didn't realize it is a Custom line Victoria. We knew that it was a 2 door Custom line and didn't realize they only made around 33,000 of these cars according to our research. Billy test drove the car and made him an offer. We told him we didn't bring any money but if he would take a check, we would buy it. He thought about it for a while then accepted our offer.
Submitted by Bernard and Jo-Eane McKay, Prince George, BC
My career as a car guy goes back to my high school years. In 1962, at age 15, my grade ten class took a trip from our school in New Westminster BC to Seattle Washington along the newly competed Interstate 5. Some of my classmates were pointing at the new Chevy II s and a few Corvettes. I was looking for Ford and Oldsmobiles. My Dad had owned a 1951 Olds Rocket 88 when I was 13 years old and that car and its V-8 motor impressed me. Around that time, I saw my first 1956 Crown Victoria and that would be my favorite car from that point on.
I was one of the few guys at our school to not only have a driver's license but also a car to drive. By 1965 I was illegally drag racing on my local 'drag strip' most Friday and Saturday nights. In the course of 18 months I went through 5 cars. The rear ends (side gears) would break on the '55 and '56 Fords. I was at the stage of life, 18 years old, when I 'thought 'I knew everything but actually knew nothing. That usually points to a career in politics.
I was getting good at working on Y blocks and re-built a 272 complete with¾ race cam. The best Y block I ever owned was out of a 1957 Monarch Turnpike Cruiser. By 1957 the 312 was improved enough that the rear seal didn't leak and even the automatic transmission real seal didn't leak. The 312 had the most horsepower and really spun the wheels of my '55 two door post.
In 1967 I met the love of my life Jo-Eane and we got married in June of 1968. Our honeymoon car was my 1956 Meteor Crown Victoria. I had reversed the rims and put on the typical (for the times) baby moon hubcaps. Of course, a floor shifter had to be installed. This was a rare car with only about 600 Crown Victoria Meteors built in Canada. I wish I still had that car today.
I met Bill in the summer of 2017. I was acquainted with Kenny Frye and he knew I was looking to replace a ‘56 Crown I owned for over 30 years but had to sell it in 2007.
Kenny knew of Bill’s car and that it was NOT for sale but he got Bill’s phone number for me anyway. I called Bill and he invited me to come and see the car. I told him about the car I had and he said he had also owned his car for over 30 years. That first visit lasted over two hours and was not the last. We became friends, I visited Bill several times along with my two brothers, Rex and Robert.
We would go out for lunch and he would always have a side trip planned of places of interest around where he lived near Asheboro, North Carolina. In 2018 Bill was bitten by a tick and never fully recovered from the side effects. Bill told me if his health didn’t improve and the Crown was sold he wanted to sell it to me because having owned one he knew I would drive it, show it and take care of it, the same as he had. He sold the car to me in the Fall of 2018. My brothers and I continued to visit Bill for day trips into 2019. Then I got a call from Kenny telling me that Bill had died. News I did not want to hear.
Bill showed this car extensively and had seventy or more trophies, mostly from AACA sanctioned shows. Many of them were First Place Awards. The car has several AACA Badges, one being an “AACA Seniors National First Prize Winner”. Bill also attended two CVA conventions. One was in 1993 in Charlotte, North Carolina where he got a First Place in the ‘56 Steeltop Display Class. He also got a Third Place at the 2002 Convention in Roanoke, Virginia. I competed in an AACA Event after I purchased the car and got a First Place Award. When I called Bill and told him about it, his comment was “... that car is used to First Place”. I treasure this car and will always treasure the memories of the good times shared with Bill Wright.
Hugh Worrell
Sanford, North Carolina
My story, I believe, is different than most of you. My father didn’t have a 1956 Ford; in fact, neither he nor my mom even had drivers’ licenses. They lived most of their lives in New York City. I didn’t have a 1956 Ford in high school or grew up wanting one. Truth is I was actually a fan of Chevy’s growing up. I graduated high school in 1975, so these Fords weren’t really popular with the people I knew. My love for this car came many years later and 3000 miles away.
In 1956 a young man by the name of Leroy Johnson bought this Pine Ridge/ Meadowmist Green Sunliner in Salinas, Ca. He got married in 1960 to Wanda and they had Lisa in 1961 and Chuck in 1964. He told me once that in the 60’s, he went to trade the Sunliner in for a new Galaxie and the salesman at the dealership told him he would give him $100 to take it home. They didn’t want it. So…… that’s what he did. The car was kept and after a while was just parked in the garage. In 1972, when they moved into their new house in the Prunedale area of Monterey County, California the car came too. It was parked in that garage, where it sat for years.
My journey to California went like this. My brother, John, married a girl from the Monterey Peninsula, Jeanne, while in the Air Force, and then settled there after getting out. I moved there in 1978, at age 21. Early in 1979 I got a job with Ma Bell in Monterey, then, early in 1980 I got a transfer to Salinas. I actually worked with my future mother-in-law; who also worked for the phone company. Not long after that I met my future wife Lisa, who, you guessed it, worked for the phone company too.
The first time she took me to her house is where I first saw the 56.
It was in 1981, when I went to the house and the car was in the garage. I don’t remember ever seeing a Sunliner. I fell in love with it right away; I believe that this body style is one of the most beautiful cars ever built. There were some modifications done. The hood ornament had been removed and the hole filled. The trunk lock and badges removed and the holes filled with a “popper” installed to open the trunk. The car was lowered by blocks and there were several other small modifications made to the interior as well. All of these things were done in the late 50’s and early 60’s. The engine had been rebuilt and bored .30 over sometime then also. Of course it was dirty, the top was down and the whole inside of the car was filled with boxes. It was a mess.
On July 17th 1986 my wife Susan and I had the pleasure of purchasing a 1956 Customline Victoria that we discovered in a local newspaper ad. Our collector car journey began with seeking a car from my wife’s year of birth (1955) and were in hope of finding a Crown Victoria in our price range. Along the way I found a ’55 Chevy Bel Air 2 door hardtop which Susan nixed immediately as it burped antifreeze in our driveway when I brought it home to show her. After I missed a nice ’55 Fairlane 2dr sedan in a car corral at a local car show I was starting to get discouraged until that fateful ad appeared. At that time I had never realized that Ford had made a Customline 2dr hardtop having seen many 2dr and 4dr sedans. I was about to get an education when I went to see the car which was parked in a gas station lot in North Andover, MA about 20 minutes from our Atkinson NH home.
Not only was it a Customline Victoria, it was a 223 6 cylinder 3 on the tree with overdrive, manual steering and all. It had just been driven from southern California to Massachusetts the previous fall by its (at the time) current owner and spent the winter in a cozy garage for the usual long New England winter. Since it was a California car from new it had absolutely no rust on it (to this day the entire underbody is original and looks like a 3 year old car’s chassis) something not seen in New England. After a test drive and determining a few things that had to be addressed, I made an offer to purchase the Vicky. After a month of back-and-forths my offer was accepted and the red and white Vicky became ours.
I’ve been looking for an old gas pump for some time, but never found one in MY price range (cheap).
Then one day my neighbor gave me a catalog for making crafts for yard ornaments, bird houses etc. The catalog was from “The Windfield Collection”, www.windfieldcollection.com, if you’re interested.
In the catalog I found a picture of an old gas pump, to be made of wood. Since I was a cabinet maker before working in a steel mill, I thought it might be a good winter project! So, I called the company and ordered the gas pump blueprint, hose, decals, transfer paper and plexiglass. Then I waited for Winter!
When the weather turned cold, I went to the lumber yard and bought 1 x 4‘s, 1 x 8 ‘s, 2 x 4’s, 2 x 6’s, 2 x 12’s, dowels, one sheet of ¾” plywood, and one sheet ¼” plywood.
Now I am ready to start. Of course, I also needed paint, glue, and screws. The material cost me around $330. Not as cheap as I thought it would be! But it will keep me from boredom. And not being in Alice’s hair!
The year was 1952. The Ford dealer in our small town, Hiawatha, KS, got a 2-door station wagon in. Dad traded our Henry J in on it that day. We had a Frazer, Kaiser and our ’51 Henry J as Dad worked for the Kaiser/Frazer dealer in our hometown after he got out of the Army. Now we owned a Ford; maroon with cream paint around the windows, 2-door, 6-cylinder, 3 speed on the column and overdrive. It took us on our summer vacations, sometimes in the mountains of Colorado in which there were time that we weren’t too sure that we would make it to the next peak. I remember Dad driving it backwards out of campgrounds more than once to get the gears low enough.
In 1956 the folks traded the ’52, that as a kid I thought we would have forever, in on a 1956 Ford; a 2-tone green Town Sedan - V8, automatic with power steering, power breaks, air conditioning, white wall tires, full wheel covers and skirts.
I was 15 and just got my driver’s license; Dad was working two jobs as most people did at the time, and some still do. Mom was working during the day and going to secretarial school in the evening in a town 40 miles away two nights a week. Dad was busy and Mom didn’t like to drive so I drove Mom to her classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. While she was in class I would go to a movie. It came down to me being the only one that drove the ’56. As an added bonus, the guy my dad worked for part time had a red and white ’56 Ford Victoria that was left at our place in town every so often and I had to drop it off out at the farm.
I have been playing around and restoring 1954, 1955 and 1956 Fords since 1982. That is when I purchased my 1954 Sunliner. It is a duplicate of my car that I owned in high school. I still own this car.
Over the years I have restored many 1955 and 1956 Fords. Most of them have been convertibles. All the cars that I have worked on were rust buckets. Never have I had a chance to work on a rust-free car.
I purchased a 1956 Ford convertible at the Carlisle swap meet. Other club members that were with me could not believe that I would buy a junk car as it was.
One of the 1955 Ford convertibles that I restored was a body-off restoration.
I produced a video of it while I was working on it and have sold many of the tapes on the internet and to other club members. The video was seven hours in length. The restoration took me two years to complete as I do all my own work when restoring a car.
Submitted By Travis Sheaffer
Picture it. Seattle. Labor Day weekend 2019. Your humble mild-mannered (ha ha!) reporter lands in Seattle on a flight from Motown. I was there to attend a Regional Meet. I landed in Seattle on Friday, August 30th and picked up my rental vehicle. I found the highway driving around Seattle to be not too bad. Of course, if you have ever driven in New York City or Chicago, everywhere else is not too bad. I arrived at the hotel about dinner time and I managed to find a nice local restaurant to quench my dinner time hunger pains and then settled in to combat the jet lag.
Saturday morning, I was up and on the move in search of a story. The meet started off that day with everyone meeting at Dennis Barci’s house. Dennis and his wife are awesome people! I looked around for familiar faces and lo and behold I saw Brian Kelly there. Brian had driven his classic car all the way from British Columbia to the Lexington, Kentucky National Convention. We first met on the phone so I could guide him into Lexington from the Columbus, Ohio area. I believe I told him to get the heck out of Columbus as soon as he could, or he may get swarmed by Dirty Buckeyes (Go Blue!)
We toured Dennis’ shop and then we hopped into the vehicles for a cruise. I rode with Brian and we had an awesome conversation along the way. If you ever need to know anything about forestry or plant life, Brian is your guy!
I met my husband George in 1986 and he was passionate about 1956 Ford cars and trucks then and had been for some time. His first car as the son of a farm family was a ’56 Ford and the joy he received from owning that car fired his passion. There are stories in the farming community of when George outran the cops with his beloved car on occasion.
A motorbike accident in 1973 left George in a wheelchair, but that never did slow him down much. He still farmed, worked as an Occupational Therapist at a local Brain Injury Hospital in Ponoka AB and continued to accumulate and work on his 1956 cars…..always buying……never selling. So, as a result there are a few ’56 Fords still sitting on our farm
In 2009 we acquired this 1956 Ford Fairlane Sunliner convertible from Westward Auto Inc in Westlock AB. The previous owner had purchased it from eastern Canada. He said he drove it to Post Falls Idaho for a CVA convention putting on 750 miles and it never missed a beat. It has a 292 motor, automatic transmission, dual chrome OSRV mirrors, rear mount deck, antenna, continental kit, white wall tires.
Being in a wheelchair, George had to install hand controls in the car, which is easily done, in about 15 or 20 minutes and you are ready to go. We took the Sunliner (in trailer) to Penticton BC for the Annual CVA Meet a few years ago. What a wonderful weekend we had. We have taken it to car shows and cruises in our area and also in the Ponoka Rodeo Parade on several occasions.
Over the years, George has gained a vast knowledge of 1956 Fords and loves to share that knowledge chatting with fellow car lovers. His favourite car magazines, which he has received for many years are the Fomoco Times and Old Autos, (a Canadian Newspaper for the Enthusiast).
In the last few years George’s health has not allowed us to be as active with the association and the Sunliner has been stored in its trailer for safe keeping. But George’s love of the 1956 Fords still goes on and has prevailed for over 55 years!
Submitted by,
Brenda Verheire
Ponoka AB Canada