Driving other marques circa 1956

[plee4139]

As I've only driven my '56 Sky Hawk I don't know what it's like to drive similar Chevies, Fords and Plymouths. Anyone have that experience to share?

[8E45E]

Look for back issues of Mechanix Illustrated. Tom McCahill was one of the best road testers around for his day!!

Craig

[rockinhawk]

I had a couple of 56 Wagons. A Ford and a DeSoto.The DeSoto was a cool ride.It had a Hemi and a pushbutton trans.Very sinsitive power steering,but when the P/S went out,it was almost impossible to steer!

The Ford was just a FORD. I bought it when I moved from my home town,Camilla Ga. to Jacksonville Fla in 1966.Packed everything I owned in it, filled it up with gas,and headed south with $7.00 in my pocket. Slept in it a few times until I got a job and enough $$$ to rent a room.Then traded it even for a 54 Champion coupe.

[Robert Crandall]

I had a 1957 Buick from 1993 to 2005. At 70 mph you did not feel it or hear it. It was like sitting on a living room couch moving at 70 mph. Handle was not a word that was used to describe driving cars back then. Moving the steering wheel and stepping on the brake pedal were suggestions that you made. The car did agree to the suggestions, but was very cautious in complying. That was no problem for me; I did not use it as a race car. It was a huge beast, but I could not help myself from enjoying looking at it or driving it. The Dynaflow was a major heat source. The cabin was always broiling hot during in town summer driving. It was comfortable on the interstate with steady wind blowing the heat from under the car. In the winter there was no direction you could drive that did not have a piece of chrome reflecting sunlight in your face, and the untinted windows baked your upper body. We had to put towels in the windows on the sunny side during trips to give some shade. Six large or eight small people could seat comfortably on the seats, but it was surprising how small the trunk was and how its shape made very little fit into it. The spare tire took 1/3 of the space. You had to put both feet out before standing up. If you put one foot out then stood with the other foot still in the car, then your thigh would be smashed into the dog leg.

A fellow SDC member took it over when I had to sell it. If it happens that I can have it back some day, then I would be happy to have it again.

[57pack]

I drove a 1956 Mercury for about ten years. My experience was similar to the afore mentioned Buick. Steering and brakes, although power assisted were merely suggestive. Plenty of power and would cruise comfortably all day on interstates, 70 mph. Plenty of room in the interior and unlike the Buick, had a enormous trunk capacity. It was, is, a good looking car. The new owner who bought it from me, is tickled pink! He even called me after hurricane Sandy to see if we were okay.

[sweetolbob]

Being that was the start of my formative years, I drove a number of them. Handling was not a major design feature of the day. It was pretty much aim and go, cornering would kinda happen but it wasn't high G-force stuff. And it got worse from there as the late 60's and 70's hit when the cars got more bloated. Some of the intermediates of the 60's F-85 (442) and GTO's came with enough stuff underneath to be better but you couldn't get me to buy any full size car until the they downsized them in the early 2000's.

My SBC Avanti's ride and handle pretty well with rebuilt suspensions, sway bars with Urethane and performance shocks so cars of that era could be made to handle OK but it just wasn't in the design cards. Boulevard ride was what those era cars were designed to deliver and Boy!! did they.

Bob

[Skip Lackie]

I took my driving test in my parents' 56 Buick Special. I don't disagree with Robert Crandall's description of his 57 Buick: lots of chrome on the dashboard, pillow-soft ride, quiet, poor handling, but mostly adequate brakes. What I mostly remember is how fast it was compared to the 6-cylinder cars most people were driving in those days. Remember, the Interstate Highway System was just being built, and there weren't many places you could go over 50mph. I also drove an older friend's 56 Golden Hawk with 3-speed/OD. Rocket-like acceleration, but very nose heavy. I bought a 57 Chevy hardtop with a 283/4-bbl and stick in 1959 and found it to be very quick and overall quite competent.

[SN-60]

I drove a '56 Sky Hawk as an everyday driver for a couple years....loved the car, as it was an early version with the 'first gear start' Flightomatic. (I always felt Studebaker made a mistake when they modified their Flightomatic's to start in second gear in drive)
One aspect of the Sky Hawk I didn't like was that it was a 'heavy steerer' (no P/S) on my car. Not as bad as a non-P/S 56 Golden,...but still a chore.

[TWChamp]

In 1966 I bought a 1962 Corvair Spyder to go along with my 1955 Chevy 4 door sedan. The Corvair was quick, very responsive, and I felt in complete control at all times, even while doing a 4 wheel drift on the cloverleaf, to check the handling. When I got back into the 55 Chevy, it felt like sterring a battleship on the ocean.

[swvalcon]

I had a 56 chev as my first car and at the time it seemed to drive ok but compared to the new cars today not so good. I painted a good friends 67 chevelle ss 396 and when I drove it back to him I thought {I can't believe we drove these things over a 100 mph.

[PekkaP]

I bought a 1956 Lincoln Premiere coupe some 10+ years ago and used it also on a 1300 mile roadtrip to move a large amount of Studebaker spare parts from another country on the continental Europe to Finland. I had planned to fit in a complete Studebaker V8 into the trunk of the 1956 Lincoln that I bought at the same time as I bought a Studebaker parts lot from another person in that country. I had not realized that the trunk of the Lincoln was not that deep like in some other fullsize cars. Well we had the Studebaker engine already in the trunk but had to pull it out. But we travelled with my friend in that 1956 Lincoln with a couple of BW T-10 gearboxes bellhousings, Hawk dashboards etc 1300 miles within 48 hours. The Linc was sitting pretty low once fully loaded. The fuel consumption on that trip with the 1956 Lincoln (368 cid 4bbl automatic) was almost twice that of the 1956 Skyhawk with 259 + 3speed OD that I also had for a while around that time. Even today of those two options I would choose the Skyhawk for my roadtrips and daily driving , even though the Lincoln offered a smooth ride and maybe a bit more comfort but the Skyhawk was so much cooler in many ways and felt more like a sports car. Well it was one memorable roadtrip anyway. And even the Studebaker engine arrived later on and after a few years in my garage it ended into my friend's 1929 Erskine coupe.

Happy New Year and many memorable roadtrips to all of you!

Pekka

[Commander Eddie]

I had a '56 Packard Clipper. Fabulous car. It had the electronic push button transmission, self leveling feature and tons of room inside and in the trunk, and went down the road like riding on a cloud. The dash was fantastic looking and was full of gauges, just like my dad's Golden Hawk. I wish I still owned it.

[mapman]

I bought a '57 triumph tr3 in 1973 and it is described as driving a brick on rails. It handles great unless there is a bump and it has performance to keep up with just about any of its contemporaries although I have never had it above 115 so I am sure a Golden Hawk would run away from it in the end. It is rough riding and has little storage but it does have plenty of leg room. You can also set you beer on the ground while you wait for the red light. It is very competent at a suicide slide, although timing is difficult with the unsynchronized first gear.
I had a '57 Desoto 4dr sedan that had nearly as much metal in one of the rear fins as the triumph does. The battleship driving description is pretty accurate. Living room couches for seats, lots of chrome, the heavy Hemi up front and signal tower fins in back. The power steering was light and easy but had no road feel at all. Definitely a land yacht
Rob

[j.byrd]

plee4139... just to strictly answer your question, I owned a 56 Chevy, 56 Ford, and a 56 Sky Hawk. The Hawk was heads above the other two for actual "driving" and to me it rode better. It most certainly lasted MUCH longer, seemed quite a bit faster, we had almost zero maintenance issues, and as an added bonus, my wife liked it best. Now, as to the Buick comments above, I used a 56 Buick before I had my own car to escort wide loads two different times, and it's true.... that car was an elegant couch going down the road.... just don't push them in curves. They push back, ha !

Final results of my 3 56 models: Chevy (283 that replaced the 265) sucked oil, ate several sets of rear-end and wheel bearings, and finally blew up with my dad trying to nurse it home. Have had several other Chevys since, but they just don't seem to like me....either...the feeling's mutual.

Ford was way under-powered (272), never used oil, always hard to start, handled like it was on marbles, and finally broke it's own distributor, so I abandoned it on the road in Oak Ridge, Tn. Had a better trip walking home than driving it home. My only Ford lemon I guess, because all the rest of our Fords have been great cars and trucks.

Sky Hawk lasted 22 years under our almost daily use, automatic had to be put in reverse first, then to back to drive before pulling out, (but only after setting a long time), used some oil, but less as it aged ( !!!!!! ), sold it only because another fellow wanted it enough to finally convince me ( $$$$ ) and wish we still had it.

[PackardV8]

I learned to drive in a 1956 Hudson Hornet with the Packard 352" and TwinUltramatic. It was an incredibly comfortable car; chair-high leather trimmed seats, good ventilation and maybe the ugliest car ever built. IIRC, it got around 12 MPG, about average for the time.

By 1950s standards, the Studebaker C/Ks were small and cramped, especially in the back seat. As previously mentioned, the big sedans of the era were like a living room on wheels and handled about as well.



The V8 C/Ks with overdrive would usually outrun and outhandle any 4-seat US car. By the late '50s/early '60s, the other manufacturers were in a competition to see how wide and wide-track they could build them. On our tight, twisty country back roads, the narrow Stude was much easier to drive than the huge empty boxes the Big Three were selling. Many older homes had to have the garage widened because the newer cars couldn't fit through the door or the driver couldn't get out once the car was inside.

Some here give Studebaker-Packard grief for the DG250 and TwinUltramatic, but some of us remember in the 1950s automatics were "problematics." GM went through a half-dozen total-failure automatic designs; Dynaflow, Turboglide, Jetaway, Roto-Hydramatic, et al, before finally getting it right with the TH350/400.

jack vines