Ford Thunderbird & Fairlane - Lincoln - Mercury photo

A superb and rare photo, made from what we believe is the original negative, of an impressive range of new 1956 Ford company products, photographed in front of Lake Michigan, U.S.A. in 1956.

This nice image shows the popular Ford Thunderbird, but also visible on this great photograph are the Lincoln Continental Mark II, the Lincoln Premier, the Mercury Montclair 4-Door Pheaton and last but not least a Ford Fairlane Sunliner Convertible.

The negative comes from the private automotive collection of one of Europe’s oldest Ford importerships that was in business since 1905.  We took over the impressive literature collection from the retired last owner. It consisted of a vast collection of mostly very exclusive automotive literature of Ford and other famous brands in the automotive industry. There are a lot of old negatives, both on celluloid as glass plates, in the files we took over.  We consider this material very historic.  Interestingly, a part of the collection consists of racing images.

The Ford Thunderbird was originally created to act as a retort to the Chevrolet Corvette. It became available for sale to the public in 1955. That year, exactly 53,166 models were produced, either with Fordomatic or Overdrive transmissions.  It featured four-way powered seats and pushbutton interior door handles. As standard, the 1955 Ford Thunderbird included a removable fiberglass top; a fabric convertible top was an option, although commonly specified. The engine was a 292 c.i. Y-block V8. The car had fender skirts. The exhaust pipes exited through twin bumper guards, which are bolted to the rear bumper.  Equipped with a V-8 engine, the Thunderbird could accelerate to 110-120 mph. It was also a smaller two-seating "personal luxury car", compared to the wallowing barges that roamed all the roads in the 1950s. It was designed to be a brisk luxury tourer, and not a sports car.

For the 1956 model, as visible on the photo that the winner of this auction will receive, more trunk space was added, the spare wheel was mounted outside, the exhausts were moved to the ends of the bumper, and air vents were added behind the front wheels to improve cabin ventilation. To improve rear-quarter visibility with the removable hardtop in place, "porthole" windows were made available as a no-cost option. An optional 312 c.i. Y-block V8 was made available for those that wanted more performance. 1956 sales were 15,631, the lowest of all three 2-seater Thunderbird model years.

Based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, the Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated in June 16, 1903.  Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce, especially elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines. Henry Ford's combination of highly efficient factories, highly paid workers, and low prices revolutionized manufacturing and came to be known around the world as Fordism by 1914.

This is a very nice and very rare photo that reflects a wonderful era of Ford ‘s automotive history in a wonderful way.  This is your rare chance to own this photo, therefore it is printed in a nice large format of ca. 8" x 10.3" (ca. 20 x 26 cm).  It makes it perfectly suitable for framing.