The first new car I ever drove was a 1956 Plymouth Belvedere that my dad bought just a few days before the '57 models were introduced. While he was shopping, the salesman showed him photos of the upcoming '57s, but dad decided that he preferred the looks of the '56, so he brought home a yellow and white 4-door sedan that had been sitting in the dealer's showroom. Dad wasn't too fond of the bright color, and the dealer offered to re-paint it for cost, but thankfully dad never took him up on the offer. The yellow looked exceptionally nice on that model.
While I wished it had been a 2-door hardtop, I wasn't terribly disappointed that the new car was a sedan. At least it had a 277 cid V8 engine and an automatic transmission, and that was cool enough for a 16-year-old, car crazy kid like me. It also had a search tune AM radio that added a cool factor.
The 2-speed cast iron case automatic transmission was called a PowerFlite, and for the 1956 model year the shift lever had been moved from its one year location on the dash above the ignition switch, to four pushbuttons mounted on the left side of the dash. Though Mercury, Edsel, Packard, and AMC cars would later get pushbutton shifting, Chrysler products were the only cars with that feature in 1956.
Ever since the first night I drove dad's car, I've loved '56 Plymouths, and I decided that one day I would own one. Well, it took fifty-four years, but I finally have one, and it will be a long, difficult, restoration process to get it on the road again.
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