Resplendent in their happy colors like great chrome-flecked Easter eggs, the array of 1956 automobiles is beckoning an unprecedented army of U.S. buyers. With so broad a choice of domestic and foreign models, the customer finds himself dazzled and a little dizzy. For his benefit LIFE presents on these pages a color catalog which for the first time shows, side by side, representative models of domestic and foreign lines, with many of their outstanding features and specifications. The new cars continue the spectacular de-signing and engineering trends of 1955 which sent Americans on the biggest car-buying spree in history—sales of 7,900,000 cars, a record mark the industry hopes to equal this year. The new models generally are more powerful (15% average hp increase) and slightly higher in price. Crisply rectangular in line, they come in exotic solid or two-tone or even three-tone colon, and are more automatic than ever.
A catalog of 1956 cars can create a certain amount of confusion because so many models offer so many variations in equipment. Many models are offered with either a six or an eight-cylinder engine and the eight-cylinder engines often come in three hp ratings. In every line automatic transmission is available and lower-priced cars offer optional features that once could be had only in the most expensive lines
—power-operated seats, power windows and power-retracted radio antennae. The most noticeable 1956 increase in mod-els came in the hardtops, the sedans with no view-obstructing side posts which have proved so popular in two-door models that all companies now offer four-door hardtops. The most significant 1956 innovations are the new safety devices. These include latches that reduce the likelihood of doors flying open in crashes, padding on instrument panels and visors, and seat belts. Ford also has as stand-ard equipment a "deep dish" steering wheel with spokes that bend under impact and shield the driver's chest from contact with the re-cessed steering post. Mass-produced standard cars account for more than 99.5% of U.S. production, but the number of limited-production special cars is in-creasing. Among sports-type cars (above) there is a newcomer, Studebaker's Golden Hawk, with a racing-car-type nose and an automatic shift with dual range for fast and slow starts. Chevrolet's redesigned Corvette has a power-operated fabric top, plus, as optional equipment, a removable hardtop. The Thunderbird of Ford comes both as convertible and hardtop.
In ultraluxurious lines there is the new Continental Mark II which sells in the $10,000 range and is the most expensive U.S.-made car. Cadillac's Eldorado Brougham, which the company plans to introduce next summer, will sell in the same range. Also in the luxury line is Chrysler's new 300.13 which has a 335-hp V.8 engine, the highest horsepower rating in the industry, and sells for about $5,500.
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images and info provided by the LIFE Magazine / LIFE Magazine International / LIFE Magazine Atlantic ARCHIVE from the Zetu Harrys Collection
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