Curtis Perry has posted another superb night-time shot taken in Portland, Oregon. It’s getting to the point where quite few post-war American cars haven’t yet had their 15 minutes of fame at CC. The 1956 Dodge is one of them, perhaps somewhat oddly. But then these cars never had much profile back in the day. When one thinks “1956”, Chevy and Ford rather dominate the mental images, along with perhaps Chrysler. But a Dodge?
These Dodges were enjoying the second year of Virgil Exner’s “The 100 Million Dollar Look” (based on Chysler’s big investment in the all-new 1955 cars). And it was worth the investment, as Dodge sales almost doubled in 1955. The ’56s were off a bit, but then so was everyone else after a industry record-breaking year in 1955. But what’s more telling is that Dodge sales were less than half of Plymouth sales, as Dodge was still positioned a genuine notch above. This Coronet series was the lowest trim level for Dodge; no strippers here. That would come soon enough, though.
These were big cars, riding on a 120″ wheelbase. The wheelbase extension over the shorter Plymouth is very apparent in the gap between the rear door, which was shared with Plymouth, and the rear wheel opening. It’s what Pontiac did with its extensions to its B-Body for years.
And 1956 was the year that Chrysler’s Magic Touch push-button controls for the automatic PowerFlite transmission appeared. That fad didn’t even last ten years.
Under the hood, in addition to the miserly 230 inch “Get Away” flathead six, there were 270 and 315 inch versions of Dodge’s “Red Ram”V8s. These were from the first generation “polyshphere” V8s, at a time when Dodge and Plymouth still built their own distinct versions of V8 engines, creating a bewildering array of engines to keep straight. These are not directly related to the later 318 “Poly” A Series, nor the “B” engines. They are based on the first generation small hemi engines, reconfigured with polyspheric heads (single rocker arm”). Power ranged from 189 hp for the 270, and up to 260 hp for the top “Super Red Ram” 315 inch version.
The old man and us 1958. He has to do a lot of punching to parallel park that thing.
I’ve never driven a push button tranny. I’ve long been comfortable with parallel parking. When I think about it, my right hand is usually on the console or column selector, and if it is off, it’s pretty intuitive to get the hand back with where it needs to be.
With that thought, finding buttons on the push button selector on the LEFT of the steering wheel would seem to be a pain-in-the-neck.
You get used to it. There are some advantages to having push button selection, for one thing, if you need to rock a car out of mud or snow, it is easier to punch the appropriate buttons than to move the floppy lever that GM and Ford used. Another advantage, if you are a teenage male, is that hooning around is easier; I had a 1963 Plymouth with a 361 V8 and I was able to actually chirp the back tires on the 1-2 shift, with some rapid punching. The poor abused Plymouth eventually died due to transmission issues but it had nothing to do with the push buttons. The Chrysler set up was actually foolproof, the buttons actuated a cable connected to the transmission.
Being cable operated, each button had a fork on the back that sat on the cable and each button’s fork was a different length. Consequently, you could pull the buttons out of the dash and put them back in a different order. If you did that, they would still work, based on the way they were labeled. So, it didn’t matter whether reverse was at the top or the bottom, it was still reverse.
I do not remember what caused me to try that on our ’59 Plymouth, but this is first-hand knowledge.
There’s something satisfying about fifties pushbutton technology. I used to fiddle with old juke boxes. You can see what does what when you push (or in some instances pull) the button, and when you follow the rods or cables it’s instantly obvious how the thing works.
As a car-obsessed child, I had to play with the pushbuttons in our 1959 Dodge station wagon. I managed to break some of them – one was reverse, but fortunately enough were still working for my mother to be able to drive the car forwards over the lawn to get out to the road and to the service station for repairs.
I agree, Joe. The mechanical design used on MoPars was absolutely bulletproof, unlike the trouble prone electrical designs on the 1956 Packard and 1958 Edsel.
If one has to find fault with it, you could say the “button effort” was a little high, but there was no doubt when a gear was engaged.
If I remember right the buttons would slide easily about half way then require a little effort to complete the trip. It wasn’t difficult but you had to get used to it.
If you were mechanically minded, no problem. If you were my mother, a different story.
HA! Right.
Great find! I have always found these more interesting than attractive. The styling does a nice job of making a car on a 120 inch wheelbase look kind of small.
When I was a kid, one of these (that was almost never driven) lived across the street from my grandma. It should have looked “normal” to me, given that grandma drove a 55 DeSoto. But where the DeSoto looked right, that Dodge looked kind of strange.
It was Chrysler old-timer Henry King who oversaw the 55-56 Plymouth and Dodge. His efforts never looked as good as the Chrysler and DeSoto that Exner was more directly involved with.
These are attractive cars. I see some Studebaker in the front.
The size looks reasonable. Did the wheelbase stretch over Plymouth get you more interior room, or just push the wheels back? The roof seems aligned with the smaller “Plymouth” doors.
Hard to believe that full-size Dodges would be forever sales challenged just 6 model years after this. Wow, all of that is getting to be a long time ago.
I assumed that the roof and doors were shared with the Plymouth. But a comparison seems to show that the Dodge sedan roof was longer, and that it had its own unique rear doors (I’m quite sure the front doors were shared).
But what’s odd is that shot of the four-door hardtop in the brochure shows a decidedly different cutout for the rear door than the sedan’s. It looks like a Plymouth rear door! Which exaggerates the empty space between the end of the door and the wheel opening.
I can’t readily explain that. Perhaps there were structural reasons. But it really is odd, and threw me when I compared it to the sedan’s rear door.
Given the longer roof line and rear doors (on the sedan, in any case), there’s no doubt that it also had more rear leg room.
I would guess that since the 4 door hardtop was going to be a 1 year style on that body, they figured a way to do only one rear door to share between Dodge and Plymouth. The sedans clearly use different roofs and rear doors between Plymouth and Dodge, but the 4 door hardtops appear to share both roofs and doors.
That had to have been a real rush job which both Chrysler and Ford engaged in after word got out about GM’s new 4 door hardtop for 1955. Nobody could have made any money on those 1956 Mopar or FoMoCo 4 door hardtops, given all of the unique pieces, low production and single year offered.
Looking some more, it almost looks like Plymouth and Dodge shared roofs on their 2 door hardtops also, so perhaps that roof was adapted to the 4 door hardtops.
I didn’t have time earlier to look at the ’56 Plymouth brochure, but that’s what I strongly suspected, and that’s what it undoubtedly is: they share the four door hardtop roof and doors.
The sedan’s rear doors are less attractive to my eyes – the make the car look disproportionately stretched. Oh, just noticed the sedan doors have a visible fillet of metal between them, whereas the hardtop doors abut. That fillet is odd.
Wow, had not noticed that Studebaker-like exposed B pillar between the sedan’s doors until I read your comment.
That’s just weird. Pretty sure the ’53-’54s weren’t like this.
My uncle was a total Dodge man all of his life. I recall that he had a ’52 Coronet that he traded in on a new ’55 Royal Lancer hardtop. Although only three years apart, the difference in those two cars is startling. When the ’55’s came out, the ’52’s instantly looked about 20 years old. Just compare this ’52 with those in the ad above. Has any stylist ever had back to back grand slams like Virgil Exner did with the ’55 and the ’57 restyle?
Wow, that’s some comparison. I mean the 57s are so much more remembered, but yeah, I can really see what you mean about the 52 aging overnite. Offhand I see the small glass and thick pillars, and the vestiges of separate fenders, and no fins. Do I see a split windshield?
When this body style debuted in 1949 it had a split windshield and wouldn’t be until the newer 1953 models that Dodge went to a 1 piece design.
Same with Chevy, though their glass was curved so it wasn’t as obviously dated.
the 1955 Dodge did not change radically and is almost the same way as the 1952 Dodge.
….The look,the feel, the power of success!,…The ’56 Dodge!, Value leader of the “Forward Look”!!!
Nice find indeed and I do not recognize that part of Portland, where did you find this Dodge? Could it be NE Sandy Blvd?
Here is the oldest Dodge that I occasionally see driving around Portland, it is a 57 I assume.
The picture was taken on NE 28th & Sandy Blvd under the drive in cover which used to be a tire shop at one time.
I knew that looked familiar–there’s an antique store right across the street, and the “Zipper” building that includes a couple of bars and a cleverly-named nail salon is right there as well. I think I’ve actually seen this car.
Here it is from the street veiw.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/N.E.+28th+%26+Sandy+blvd/@45.5291731,-122.6371567,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjIo5u5Z6_u5CveGijoRrfQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x9418b323efda31dc!6m1!1e1
Nice find. Gosh who wouldn’t want “the magic touch of tomorrow” on their car. I would check that option box. To modern ears it sounds hoky or marketing hyperbole. But these features like autos and V8s were still new especially at affordable price points and it must have been exciting wondering what the fine folks in the big 3 engineering departments were going to come up with next fall.
“And 1956 was the year that Chrysler’s Magic Touch push-button controls for the automatic PowerFlite transmission appeared. That fad didn’t even last ten years.”
Read yesterday’s post about the anniversary of “Unsafe at Any Speed”. Nader’s work included a demand/suggestion for universal shift patterns for all automatic transmissions.
The federal government agreed. However, rather than legislate a unified shift quadrant, they used the GAO’s fleet purchasing power to force the change.
The GAO came out and said (paraphrased) “If your car doesn’t have a PRNDL shift quadrant, it will not be considered for fleet purchase.”
THAT’S what killed pushbutton transmissions. No manufacturer wanted to lose government fleet sales.
And what’s old is new again. Lincoln tried to bringback pushbotton transmission in 2013 while Chrysler use a rotary shifter for the Chrysler 200 and Ram 1500.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZCTly-rkc
Chrysler isn’t the only brand using a round knob for a gearshift, Jaguar went with a round shift knob a few years back and there are probably a few more.
And Studebaker, made in Canada with no hope for GAO purchases, stuck with the PNDLR right up through the very last 1966 model.
Funny how the ‘standard’ adopted was the GM column shift. GM’s boys had something to do with that adoption, required also in driver’s ed cars, since they didn’t want a button shift of their own.
Notice that no-one made Peugeot or Datsun (or anyone else) use a ‘standard’ shift pattern for their ‘standard-shift’ cars. I remember the Datsun B-210 put reverse-gear right where everyone else put first gear, no detent or anything to stop you from slamming it into reverse at a stop-light. And Peugeot had it’s own special column-shift pattern that was unique through the 504 models. I guess they standardized to floor-mounted shifter in the 505.
Maybe a column shit was ‘safer’, but I much preferred the button-shift for controlling the transmission than that balky column shift, especially in sprinting away from lights or rocking the car out of snow.
Actually, the standard that got adopted was the Ford standard. GM’s shift levers had R on the bottom for eons. The Powerglide was the first to move R up below P (as Ford did). But the old HydraMatic as used on Cadillacs and the big Pontiacs kept that PNDSLR pattern at least through 1963 and maybe a touch later. Ditto the Roto Hydramatics.
SOME of us think of Dodge first. 😉 Neat car and a nice piece, Paul.
Sweet looking car. I’ve always liked the 1955-56 Mopars. Not as radical as the 57 through 59 “Forward Look” Mopars, but not as boxy as 1949-54. There’s nothing wrong with the 49-54 Mopar models.
The styling is different, but the body frame remained the same as a 1949 Dodge,if anyone agrees?
Presumably, the wheelbase extension permitted the rear seat t be moved backwards as well, but the roofline appears a little out of sync with it.
Did the Dodge share a roof line and doors with the Plymouth, and if so was there any advantage with the longer wheelbase?
See my lengthy comment to a similar question a bit further up this thread.
Love this. I think the Plymouth’s styling from those years look a little cleaner though.
Coronet is a great name for a car, I wish they would bring that name back to a nice sedan.
My mother’s maiden aunt always bought Plymouths, her next to last one was a 56 Savoy that was a medium grey color outside and I have no idea what color inside as she always had the seats in her cars covered. While that Plymouth was an okay car, I always the side trim on Plymouths was …..a bit “undecided”. A cousin had a 55 Dodge Royal as her “go to college car”. That car was a 3 tone, with 2 being shades of blue….I thought between the (over)chromed trim and the 3 colors, that that Dodge looked like a clown car.
If I were buying one of these today, I’d probably buy a stripper 2 door sedan or a flashy 4 door hardtop…..or a wagon.
A co-worker had a red, white, and black 1956 Coronet 4-door sedan that he’d inherited from a grandmother. In consideration of its bright color combination he named it a word beginning with n that dare not be spoken nowadays.
BTW, my experiences with a 56 and 64 Plymouth with pushbutton automatic transmissions is that the parking lever was the confusing part. Up or down to engage or dis-engage? Being left handed, I didn’t find the left-handed controls all that confusing.
Park lever – Down to park, up to release. I know this because a friend had one on which the spring broke, so that in order to put the car into D, he had to hold the lever up until the D button was pressed – a 2 handed operation.
I think there was a big arrow on it.
I didnt realize how large 120″ that was until I checked the wheel base on a new Toyota Land Cruiser which is only 112″ !
Even my lowly ’64 Dart Compact 170 had a 111″ wheel base and a 196″ overall length. It was the longest car in most parking lots in the mid-80’s.
Even tho’ the current cars are ‘massive’ and ‘big’, they’re just not long anymore!
One last comment — the ’55-’56 is well-remembered now for the Dodge “La Femme”.
Remembered more for its having been offered, as they actually sold so dismally that I’ve never seen a ‘live’ example.
Dad traded in his clean as a whistle 54 plym savoy I have a picture of it. Pretty little thing
got a 4 door two tone 56 plym oh boy v8! Pushbutton powerflite! FINS half of it hung
out of the garage I recall the rust over the headlights Dad worked at the Mercury
plant in st louis but he drove Plymouths. St Louis blue two tone Savoy!
I “inherited” my sister’s 2 tone blue 54 Plymouth (6 cylinder and 2 speed Powerflite) when she graduated to a near new 67 Mustang. I will always thing of 54 Plymouths as 1 of THE UGLIEST cars sold in the U.S. The whole front clip for those cars looked like it was designed for another car….a car that was never actually built.
Except for the (slightly?) lower price, I can’t understand why customers preferred the Plymouths of the early 50s to the Dodges. Starting in 1957, it would seem to be a “toss-up” between Plymouth and Dodge, at least for looks.
Didn’t Dodge cut their throat offering that awful six wasn’t this supposed to be a super duper medium priced car ? GM and Ford must have had a laugh about these
“medium priced” flathead six dodges!
You’ll never convince me of that, David. It may seem that the flathead was an obsolete design, but it was a proven and rugged powerplant that did yeoman service in severe fleet use for many years to come.
Most buyers didn’t care where the valves were located. All they wanted was a reliable engine. That’s just what old Dodge six was.
From, the side it has a sort of ’57 Chevy look to it. Or, since it came out a year later should I say the ’57 Chevy has a ’56 Plymouth look to it? Nice to see this one still prowling Portland pavement.
It took until 1966 for them to make a Coronet that I actually lusted after. Compared to the Ford or Chevy of 56, it does look a bit plain. I kind of liked them, that’s about it.
Hey Paul. Would love to see an article on the old red ram engines. Would you or one of the other savants be up to the challenge?
“Dodge sales were less than half of Plymouth sales, as Dodge was still positioned a genuine notch above. This Coronet series was the lowest trim level for Dodge; no strippers here. That would come soon enough, though.”
I think this was a key turning point for Chrysler, and their decision to go downmarket was very damaging in the long run. In 1956 Dodge dealers still sold Plymouths, so they were the beneficiaries of that low-priced sales volume. The Dodge dealers should have just smiled and taken that volume, or upsold customers to pricier (and more profitable Dodges), similar to Chrysler Plymouth and DeSoto Plymouth dealers. It really wasn’t a bad dealer model, with a specific low-price brand paired with a more upmarket one. That combined volume had to have been reasonable.
Breaking apart that dealer model and moving Plymouth out from Dodge dealers (presumably to ape GM) was a foolish mistake. Adding “low priced” Dodge models subsequently put them in direct competition with Plymouth, and from there it was a race to the bottom for both brands. Sure Dodge sales went up, but Plymouth’s declined by a similar amount, so there wasn’t any incremental business, just cannibalization and brand damage. Plymouth may be dead, but the Dodge brand certainly didn’t thrive as a more premium choice after that decision was made either.
Dodge was the preferred division over Plymouth and DeSoto among corporate managers, those such as K.T. Keller had cut their teeth there before ascending to the corporate presidency. Although dealer pairing of Plymouth with DeSoto and Chrysler was common, it was far less so at Dodge franchises. The reason for this was most Dodge dealers were in place and well established before the 1928 buyout of Dodge by fledging Chrysler Corporation, didn’t take on Plymouth at its initiation because they had no reason to do so. Dodge joining the fold immediately rendered the newly-introduced DeSoto superfluous. This situation held until the mid-1950’s.
As the 1950’s Plymouth product content was increased in size, engine choice, styling and price to close the gap between it and Dodge, its managers lobbied for their own lower-priced version, arriving as the 1960 Dodge Dart, selling within $20-$50 of Plymouth prices. Although it broadened the Dodge market reach, it did little for their upmarket models acceptance. What it did was cannibalize Plymouth sales volume in the process, a lose-lose for both.
Eventually, folding of the Dodge franchises with Chrysler-Plymouth dealers happened as the overall industry consolidated and the Plymouth and Dodge became unrecognizably differentiated.
Dodge was out to knock off both Plymouth and DeSoto from the start!
Getting lower (Plymouth level) products and with Dodge 880 and Chrysler Newport getting DeSoto buyers muddled both Dodge and Plymouth, In the end Plymouth and Dodge chasing the same customers as Chevrolet, instead of the then expected Plymouth/Chevrolet – Dodge/Pontiac model. Same thing killed Mercury. At least for those years GM knew how to handle the “middle middle” market with B.O.P. (untill the 80s anyway…)
Ford must have been impressed with how well the ’60 Dodge Dart sold, they pulled the same stunt with the ’61 Mercury Meteor 600 and Meteor 800: “The Better Low-Priced Car”……the beginning of the end for Mercury.
I’m a little surprised that there has been no mention up to now of the fabulous Dodge D500 that was introduced in 1956. It was built essentially to satisfy NASCAR’s requirement that any race car be based on an existing production model. While many here may be more familiar with the big 1955 Chrysler C300 and 300B’s reputation for high performance, fewer recall the exemplary record of this first ever Dodge muscle car.
Powered by a 315 cubic inch Hemi in either 260 and 276 horsepower form, the 1956 D-500 set or broke a total of 306 speed records. And it was not just a big engine stuffed into an otherwise standard car. Heavy duty chassis, suspension and drive train components were sourced from the Chrysler New Yorker and Imperial.
Newly designed steering arms for faster non-power steering, higher rate springs front and rear, wider wheel rims, larger diameter dual exhausts and 12 inch brake drums with heavy duty friction material were combined to create a truly potent performance package.
Truly, the D500 started Dodge’s “Hot Car” career!
Great story. I’m still searching for proof of my Mopar hobby-horse: that the ’55 Plymouth and Dodge were actually clever reworkings of the new for ’53 bodies. Take a look at the shape of the trunk lid on these Dodges, and how far the rear fenders and bumper extend from the trunk line (as compared to a ’55 Chevy or Pontiac) and see if you agree.
Not buying, but you at least made me look. Look at the 54 Plymouth sedan vs. the 55. The 55 shows some exposed B pillar between the doors where the 54 conceals it. Also, look at the differences where the front and rear doors meet the rocker – all right angles in 54, little triangle in 55. If you were going to carry any hard points through, it would be the middle of the sedan body that nobody cares to look at (look at Studebaker, that did what you suggest).
The continuity was that Henry King was in charge of the styling the new 55 Plymouth and Dodge. King took over after Ray Dietrich was fired following Walter Chrysler’s stoke in the late 30s, and was the guy behind the 1940 models up through those 53-54s. Exner tried to update the trim on the 53-54 (the way Elwood Engle would do the same to Exner’s designs a decade later), but the basic shape and basic car were Henry King. (Remember that Exner did not become in charge of Chrysler Styling until 1953, a demotion for King.) I think that the 55 Plymouth/Dodge carries some continuity with the earlier models because Henry King styled both of them.
I’m with Jim on this. There are way too many differences. I don’t see a single hard point that seems to match up. The ’55 was two inches lower than the ’54. And an inch wider. The “$100 million Look” really did involve new bodies for all that money.
A red and white ’56 Dodge is the first car I remember. I was 3. My parents owned it.
There’s a red and white one of about this vintage that is a daily driver near me (San Diego suburbs). I put some pics of it in the cohort a while back. It’s definitely the oldest daily driver I see regularly. https://www.flickr.com/photos/94780867@N03/albums/72157638297584633 .