[FWDLK] 56 Dodge Torqueflite ?

[<DupontTim@xxxxxxx>]

Greetings,  I am very interested in the outcome of the Torqueflite question
on the 56 Dodge. It raises some very interesting questions and forces us to
define some aspects of the hobby. When it comes to cars that are going to be
recognized by  collectors as factory examples where is the line drawn? I
remember reading an article on the Otis Chandler collection and in defining
his collection he was only collecting cars that were available to the
"general public". Could Joe Public if he  were in the right place at the
right time order the car and get it built. This is a very good and definitive
line in a lot of respects. I think regarding Forward Look cars one might ask-
Was the car or equipment intended to be offered to the general public? So
often is the case in the fifties that certain documents about availability
are rare and  documented examples are not around to point to. If it can be
shown that an option code for a Torqueflite on a 56 Dodge was selected by the
factory wouldn't it go a long way to showing that it was introduced for
production, sponsered by the factory, and offered to "the general public"?
On the possibility that 56 Dodges with 354 Hemis, there is no doubt that
somewhere someone pondered the prospect but did the factory ever intended
them for production, the proof would be in someone showing a definitive
amount of factory documents, currently there is no such evidence. Never say
never, yet proof is positive. Prototypes and factory experiments are another
story, and in my mind like Otis I put them in a different category of
collector car, not necessarily better or worse just different. Thanks Tim