What do we have here? Someone is planning to spend a nice time outdoors and to do so in style with this 1956 Mercury. The trunk is stuffed with goods; there’s one folding table and numerous other items. Even the camera setup seems ready to come along for the ride.
Looks like a stop along the way. Is there something missing for lunch? Some snack? A beverage of some kind? Better get those before leaving town.
Nice outing, isn’t it? Looks like old-time friends, or maybe relatives. In any case, lunch looks to have been good. And there are a few nice rose bushes in the trunk, surely headed to a new home.
These lovely Kodachromes come from the elektroSpark Flickr page.
Further reading:
Curbside Classic: 1956 Mercury Medalist – The Big M
CC Outtake: Drive Through Banking In Style – 1956 Mercury Monterey Phaeton Four Door Hardtop
I have that same camera tripod. A family friend gave it to me, he had used it post WW II. I had to shim the rotating mechanism at the top, but otherwise it works as well as when it was new. Did a great job for me back when.
One of my least favorite stylings. I remember as a small boy those taillights reminded me of hard candy. The styling overall was so chunky compared to the couple of previous years which I thought were some of the best.
It’s great to have a group of photos from (apparently) same outing. Let’s see….New Jersey; the big/shallow cardboard box has the fold-up table, and the Coleman item is perhaps a camp stove, etc. The urban photo has an Olm’s Drugs, Uptown Bar, etc.—-this *might* be Broadway Avenue in Long Branch, NJ, but that’s only a super-preliminary hunch.
I guess the Mercury never sold as well as plain old Ford–as a 1960s kid I saw ’56 Fords all the time, but only rarely the Mercury. Still, it’s great to see it, shiny and new, today!
That last shot sure doesn’t say “New Jersey” to me, but maybe there’s parts that look like Iowa?
It’s a New Jersey license plate (Atlantic County, due to the A/L code), but the downtown picture is from Wisconsin. Antigo, Wis. – about 30 mi. NE of Wausau. I suspect the picnic photo is from Wisconsin as well.
Much of Antigo’s downtown is still intact, such as the building on the right of the image. StreetView link and photo below:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/3Zrknc7FVwxUUwwK8
Thanks; that explains it. More like they were on an extended trip to the Midwest.
Wow!!
Thanks for a lovely piece of memorabilia. Simpler times.
Love that last shot. It takes me right back to rural Iowa in the early ’60s, before all sorts of huge steel buildings were put up to confine hogs and such. it’s so bucolic, and the three women having their picnic with that splendid Mercury is divine. It’s straight from the easel of Norman Rockwell.
You’d never see a scene like that nowadays.
Looks like they might have picked up a load of soil along with the rosebushes.
I wonder if the battery drained out with the doors having been left open.:-)
I’ve always liked Mercurys throughout their model years in the 1950’s. Their struggle for more respect in the medium-price class was an up-and-down endeavor that was a mix of interesting attempts which ultimately didn’t take them far enough.
Chunky looking yes but still very pretty IMO .
It’s terrific to have the full set of pictures , thanx also for the google pic. of the building now .
-Nate
I love how every shot shows a door open. There was nobody in the group like my mother – “Shut that door!”
These remind me of childhood trips to visit my mother’s aunt and uncle, who were dairy farmers in Minnesota. Coincidentally, one of Mom’s cousins owned a 55 or 56 Mercury during one of those visits.
This single-tone paint with the white roof is one of the cleanest 56 Mercurys I can recall seeing. The first thing I noticed was the lack of that odd little swatch of contrasting color under the side windows. These look much nicer without.
This post brings up a measure of nostalgia for me.
Friends of our family had an all-black version of this stylish two-door hardtop, although I think it was the Canadian ‘Ford Monarch’ variant. We met them on holiday at Cavendish Beach on Prince Edward Island in 1956, and I remember thinking their car was the sleekest thing on four wheels I’d ever seen.
They had driven several days on two-lane highways from their home outside Toronto – two adults, four kids, and luggage all (literally) squeezed in. Our family, carless at the time, had taken the still-existing passenger rail service from Rothesay, New Brunswick, the train cars being loaded onto a winter-ice-breaking railcar ferry to cross the eight mile wide Northumberland Strait.
Our families stayed in touch for many years, visiting each others’ homes several times. Somewhere there is a black-and-white photo of the family of six, all proudly lined up in descending height against their beautiful car, as was the custom of the time.
Surprisingly, their now-modest house is still standing on the leafier street, a nice example of North American post-war suburban aspiration.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.563206,-79.6007809,3a,45y,289.15h,93.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLSIF0SDPmX112czBSbbvfw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu
Our Victorian-era house in Rothesay is long gone,
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3844479,-65.9967472,3a,75y,272.12h,86.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spxAygnVfOP5pDiis29VOEw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
and the former town railway station has been converted to other uses.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3892205,-65.9989816,3a,75y,315.64h,98.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sM9XFcucR1w0Cq1b4563_sQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu
Rail service to PEI was discontinued in the 1960s, with the replacement of the aging ‘SS Prince Edward Island’
https://sailstrait.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/the-steam-ferry-prince-edward-island-in-charlottetown/
by more modern car/truck ferries.
The billion-dollar Confederation Bridge opened in the 1990s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Bridge
At a certain point, one’s life starts to take on the colour of a history documentary. 🙂
Wonder why they’re photographing the “overstuffed, trunk”?