Imperial Home Page -> Imperials by Year -> 1956 -> Jeff Carrothers
| I first heard about my 1956 Imperial Sedan through my good friend Donald Taccone in Birmingham. The car was owned by an older collector in North Alabama, who had it in storage for the last 10 or 15 years. The car was stored in a building with about 15 other cars, and had not been started or driven during that storage period. Donald told me that he had seen and driven the car in the 1980's when it was at some Alabama car shows, and that it was extremely nice. |  |
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I called the owner, and to make a long story short, he insisted that I send him a cashier's check for the car before he would let me look at it. He told me that I could go and look at the car through the window of the building, and make my decision. From what I could see, the car looked dusty, but in remarkable condition. I tried and tried to deal with the owner, but he had his mind made up, and that was the only way that he would do business. I called him several more times, got hung-up on, and lost many night's sleep before I decided to go for it. Most of my friends thought I was crazy, except for Donald, who loves Imperials as much as I do. |
| I sent the man a check and Donald, Kerry Pinkerton, Jay Williams, Ken Newberry, Robert Soule, and some other friends went with me to get it. We pushed it out of the building, loaded it on a trailer, and hauled it to Birmingham. The car still had brakes after all that time....the main thing was cleaning the gas tank to get it going. The car runs beautifully...without even so much as a tune-up...the brake linings look new, and the wheel cylinders were near perfect. |  |
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Of course, the tires were pretty much square on one side after sitting for over a decade. But after a new set of tires, it rides like a dream. The previous owner had owned the car since the mid 1970's, had the engine rebuilt, front end rebuilt, transmission and brakes rebuilt, and taken excellent care of it. It has factory air, a Torqueflite transmission, and an original interior with plastic covers over the seats. My new sedan is painted Cloud White over Surf Green. It was a crazy way to buy a car...but I couldn't be more pleased with it. |
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