1956 Dodge

1956 Dodge

The official description of this vehicle is: 1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer Special Club Coupe D500. The tri-tone colors are Saphire White, Iridescent Charcoal Poly, and Oriental Coral. This car still has the original paint, chrome, and upholstry.

When I was a teenager and looking for my first set of wheels in 1967, I found a 1956 Dodge Custom Royal 4 door hardtop for sale at the local grocery store parking lot. During the test drive, I told the owner that the gas gauge was near empty, but he said it had plenty left to finish our ride and not to worry. Even though we ran out of gas, I still bought it. I loved the flashy fins, tri-tone paint, and 4 barrel V8. It lasted through 2 years of commuting to college and Saturday nights, until it developed terminal rod bearing failure and died at the ripe old age of 137,000 miles. I loved that car and the memories it helped create, and always missed it.

Flash forward to March 1983. I had been looking for another 1956 Dodge for several years as a hobby car. One day a friend at work showed me a very brief ad in “Deals on Wheels”. All the ad said was it was a Custom Royal 2 door hardtop, 43,000 miles, location in a small town in South Dakota, and price. One line and no picture. I called the seller and asked about the condition. He said it had no rust, the chrome was perfect, the interior was perfect, and it ran perfect. Now as we all know, one man's “perfect” (usually the seller's) is often on a higher plain than the perception of the buyer. And the magnitude of the difference is directly proportional to the physical distance. So, being a little skeptical, I asked the seller on a Tuesday to send a photo. That Friday the photo was in my mailbox and it looked great, and the color combination was even my first choice. I called a buddy and told him to be ready at 7:00 a.m. the next day, because we were going to South Dakota to buy a car. Three hundred miles later, we arrived at noon Saturday and the car was everything the seller said it was. All it needed was a lot of clean up and wax. It was an estate car. The original owners stopped driving it in 1965, according to the thick stack of oil change stickers in the doorjamb. By 1979, they had passed away and their estate sold it to the second owner, from who I bought it. It had always been garaged, so the paint, interior, and rubber weather striping had always been protected from the sun. The only mechanical problem was a slow leak in one of the front brake wheel cylinders, which was the first thing I fixed after I drove it home. The paint you see in the photos is the original paint. The chrome is also original and as good as NOS. And the interior is still original. When I got it, it still had all the original radiator hoses, heater hoses, belts, plug wires, battery cables, fuel pump, AutoLite headlights, and electrical equipment. The tires had been replaced in the early 60s. In the interest of reliability, I replaced everything but the electrical equipment. I cleaned everything, lubed everything, and lightly rubbed out the paint to restore the shine. I average about 1000 miles on it every year. Take a close look at it during the next Mopars in the Park (Shakopee, MN) show or the Back to the 50s (Minneapolis, MN ) show.

One of the reasons we like Mopars is their performance. In 1956, Dodge had more performance than anybody else around. They were the record holders at the drag strip and second only to Chrysler 300s in NASCAR. Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick was getting 106 mph in the high 13 seconds from his D500-1 car. His car was equipped with the D500 315 cid Hemi, dual 4 barrels (dash one option), a 3 speed manual transmission, Imperial's 12 inch brakes, and stiff springs. This was factory stock with the D500-1 option. Because the only available Mopar manual transmission was designed back in the 30s with a very low first gear and a large rpm drop into second, Dodge drag racers used very deep rear axel gears and started out in second, using only 2 gears! A quarter mile speed of 106 mph is performance that a lot of 60s muscle cars would envy. How many do you think could equal that using only 2nd and 4th of 4 gears? Just think what headers, modern slicks, and a 4 speed could do!

My Dodge was factory equipped with the 315 cid Polysphere, a 2 barrel carb, and a 2 speed PowerFlight transmission. Not bad for performance, but it left a lot of room for improvement. I wanted to approach more closely the street performance that Dodge had back in 1956 and uphold the reputation. My first upgrade was to install a 4 barrel WCFB carb. This made a big improvement, since the original 2 barrel was too small and wouldn't breathe well above 3500 rpm. My next step was to locate an original 1956 Dodge D500 engine. I was lucky to find one in a running 4 door parts car. I had that engine rebuilt in 1990 and upgraded with a little more cam, ported heads, unleaded valves, balanced rotating stuff, and forged pistons. The complete story is on the D500 Engine page. For the first year after installing the Hemi in the car, it had a standard 4 barrel carb for break-in. Then I changed it to the optional dual 4 barrels. In 2004, it got a 727 TorqueFlight, which dramatically improved starting performance (42% deeper first gear) over the old 2 speed PowerFlight. The tranmission transplant story is on the Transmission page. Then it will be off to the races!

Photos:

Clubs:

WPC (Walter P. Chrysler) Club: http://www.chryslerclub.org/

ForwardLook (1955 to 1961 Mopars): http://www.forwardlook.net