When most people hear Continental they think Lincoln. That was not always the case though. In the mid fifties, Ford actually marketed the Continental as its own brand for a while. They were sold through Lincoln dealerships, but the L word wasn’t found anywhere on the car. These were high dollar luxury cars built to compete with the likes of Rolls Royce. Just take a look at this one listed here on eBay to see what made them so special.
This particular Continental supposedly sat in a garage for 30 years. The owner would go out and start it on occasion to keep things lubricated. They would also move it back and forth so the brakes wouldn’t freeze up. Someone purchased it from them though and has entrusted it to a dealer to sell it for them. The 368 V8 engine did start right back up with a new battery and does look very clean.
The interior is claimed to be original and I don’t see any reason to doubt that. There’s evidence of a respray though. That may exclude it from true survivor status, but the seller does claim that there isn’t any rust and that everything works.
These cars may have been expensive to purchase, but they were also expensive to produce. Ford had a hard time making money with them so production didn’t last long. They truly were special automobiles though and you have to give Ford props for attempting to rekindle the magic of the pre-war luxury car. If you haven’t seen one of these in person, you really should.
No doubt one of the most beautiful cars ever made in the USA. (If not THE most)
Yes, THE, me thinks…
Nice car, but the owner states this car has air conditioning. The ’56 Continentals had air vents on the rear quarter panels to facilitate the air conditioner, The ’57 cars eliminated this feature. But it does have the air ducts in the headliner for the a/c.
Interesting. I suspect this is actually a ’57 Continental
The vin he list on fleabay is for a 56, but I agree about the vents, maybe it was a “very, very late” 56…lol
And seller claims original paint, my soul, the underside of that hood didn’t come that way from the factory with white paint dripped on the air cleaner cover, and looks like over spray on the passenger door frame at the latch. looks like Maryland plates on the front and Delaware on the rear. None of this couldn’t be over looked if it isn’t rotted out on bottom. There could be serious money spent on either total resto or custom. What I’ve read about these is they are sweet drivers either way. Or maybe flush the gas tank, brake fluid and rebuild the calipers and drive…
This car does have factory ac
My dad was hired away from Fisher Body to work on this car
He was responsible for the HVAC
I remember as an extremely young kid riding in his company car, complete with the chart recorder and thermocouples everywhere
The early 56’s had the sexy scoops for the ac cars, the rest of the 56’s did not
This is a fairly complete car, note the Continental star shaped wing nuts on the air cleaner and ps reservoir
This car has at least the 106000 miles shown
I’m certain the horrible paint and body work covers up some rust/rot issues, you can tell the doors are full of bondo. The panel fit is awful
This is not priced well, way better cars can be bought for less
Whoever buys this is going to be severely upside down
I certainly agree the car looks very nice overall but seeing the overspray under the hood and in the trunk area kind of makes me worry a little bit. If they took that little care while doing the paint job what were they trying to cover up? For a car like that either when new or today you would certainly want somebody to do a classy paint job and not a scab job like this appears to be! It will certainly be interesting to see what price they end up getting for this car.
Worth it for the hidden fuel filler alone!
Another ’50s car I’d really like to own, and this one looks good. At about $13K with 2 days to go it’s very reasonable…so far. Median auction prices paid for these are the low $40Ks, altho the high auction price paid was $247.5K.
I read somewhere a long time ago that these Continentals were largely assembled by hand. That’s easy to believe since they only made 2,550 ’56 MkIIs and 444 ’57 MkIIs.
I also read that Ford lost money on every one they made, probably because of the low numbers and the hand assembly.
In person these are impressive cars, like a 1.5 scale t-bird. I saw one in dark purple over a white interior at an auction and it was pretty spectacular.
If you fancy one buy the absolute best one you can find. These are expensive cars to restore and many parts will be rare as hens teeth.
I guess there is a legitimate reason for for neglect this most beautiful car suffered, I sincerely hope someone will restore her to her original beauty and stature.
Notice the poor condition of the interior chrome. Pittingon steering wheel. How does this happen unless this was stored in a damp environment? On gauges, pics look like heavy nicotine stains and lots of wear. Same for all the switches. I suspect this is a 109K mile car that was dressed up with poor repaint. That the seller would represent this as an original paint car and put 9K miles on the listing are big caution flags for me.
Designed by William Clay Ford (Deceased owner of the Detroit Lions) that was his last car he did before he took ownership of the Leos
the 1st model car 1/25 scale I ever assembled was this car – I was very young and had never seen one yet in person but I hadn’t seen a RR at that age yet either.
I have been sitting in a few since – never taken a ride. It is truly a luxury car even today and an impressive sight.
Christmas of 1955 I first saw one of these on display in Manhattan. Black and I had to ask my Dad what it was. “It’s the new Continental”. “Wow, looks expensive”. “It is”. Beautiful car then. Still is.
If I’m remembering right, the one made for Elizabeth Taylor was custom painted the shade of blue that matched her eyes.
V I O L E T not blue
Oh yes. I stand corrected. The most amazing eyes ever.
Never was a Lincoln man but a Dr. friend of my dad had a new black one that I thought kicked ass and still do.
In profile these reminded me of some Ferrari Coupes. I did some searching in Google images and found “250 GT Coupé Pininfarina”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrari_250_GT_Coupe_Pininfarina.JPG
Those did not make their debut til 1958 so who knows, did the Continental influence Pininfarina?
I guess I’m not the only one, as in my searches using a variety of search criteria several of these Continentals also came up. If I had time I would click the links and see what was being said that caused the search to find the Connie’s.
These were to be a retractable top but cost were already too high so it was used on the 57 Ford.
The 56-57 Continentals are about the classiest car of their day. The paint job on this one is disappointing. How hard would it have been to remove the insulation from under the hood? Looking under that insulation it appears to be black. Was that the original color of this car?