Well Restoring this car in Turkey with limited spare parts was a though one, this is my second car the first one is a 1968 Mustang Coupe which I bought in 2008 and it was really easy to source parts, at the time of restoring I purchased most of my parts from Mustangs Unlimited, there you could find almost every part such that, you could make a car out of all the parts, after completing the restoration of my 1968 Mustang I then started to look for 1956 Ford Victoria 2Dr Hard Top, it was really hard to find this car, after looking for 2 years finally I found it in another city which was far away from where I live, anyway I got it and immediately started to restore it after purchasing the car, the problem of sourcing parts hit me in the face, it was no mustang no remade parts almost only NOS on top of that it had too many moldings and it was a hell to find, I remember I spend days in front of Ebay to find parts I almost spend 4 years sourcing the moldings, it was crazy there was moments where I really consider quitting but something drove me until this day, here in Istanbul we have a cl***ic car museum, owned by a friend of my uncle, I called the owner and asked him specific questions about where to find the front grill, and he gave me a number of a guy called Bob Burgess, he really helped me with some parts and I brought them here with a friend of mine, so finding the part, finding someone to bring you the part these are all challenges, on the other hand, the body shop started to work with the car he did a good job then we brought the car to a paint shop but as you could imagine you have to wait for a certain time for them to take your car, unfortunately after 3 months the painter p***ed away, so It was a sad moment, felt sorry for the guy then a week later I took the car out, realized that there was some problems with the body work, so I took the car to my place and made a decision to start over, sometime it happens glad I did it I found a very nice restoration shop in Ankara the capital of Turkey, and send the car over when the dis***embled the car there was many many dents and rusty places bad repairs so I felt that I was back at 0, I send them all the parts necessary then went over gone through all the parts, now I saw that there was some parts needed to order, especially hard ones to source such as the headlight buckets, dash knobs, number brackets and etc, I then write in this forum, many people helped me out I find a nice person who really helped me out he had the parts and purchased from him, I had him send them to my brother in law in SF he brought all of the parts which was one of the happiest days of my life ( I think I am going crazy here ) My engine that I am using is a 351W I have an AOD transmission and a 9" Ford Rear end I had previously bought Dayton 17" wheels where I saw that they are not a good fit, so I had to purchase a new set of 15" tyres and I had to shorten the rear end so I purchased Dutchman axles and shortened the rear end and when we receive the axle we saw that there is no centering hub so we had to weld these also, I also purchased a AC system for the car spend years to get to this point so I really felt the need to thank you to all the people in the HAMB forum that really helped me out shed some light to my path, I am almost done would like to share the pictures of my car I think it will be on the road in a short time.
Not jealous of your journey to this point but man your car looks great and was well worth your wait and patience.
Congratulations, it has obviously been a difficult process but the results speak for themselves. Good job.
Hi, no I am in Istanbul Turkey. So you can imagine, how difficult it would be to accomplish this restoration job outside US.
Sorry to be a smart-aleck, but in all the years you've owned a 56 Ford, you've never heard of the Crown Victoria ***ociation www.thecvaonline.com ? They are a dedicated resource for 54-56 Ford enthusiasts, whether it's a Customline or a Crown Victoria and everything in between. Having owned a 55 Victoria with a 289 SBF/C4 transmission since 1981 and being a CVA member since 1987, I couldn't imagine owning and restoring one without being a member and getting their monthly publication.
No, I haven't heard of it, but I am a very mechanically curious person, I do serious research, that's why I was able to overcome many problems, otherwise I wouldn't be able to live in Istanbul, Turkey and restore and modernize this car at the same time.
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