On The Road

[GAT]

So how many 1956 Mark II on the road . How many 1957 are on the rd . Any one have idea?

[Pat Marshall]

If you mean how many Mark II's are now actually being driven - I don't know how you could determine that.

[Barry Wolk]

I concur, Pat. There is no way to know.

[GAT]

How many mark ii are registered being used on this site?

[Pat Marshall]

That's not an easy one either. That's for several reasons 1) There are members of this Forum who do not report their cars VIN 2) Sometimes people join this Forum because they are interested in a car, and they enter that car's VIN when they register. Ad an example last year two dealers and an interested buyer all joined the Forum and registered #3418. 3) If you search for a car, you only get cars that have been mentioned in a thread, not cars that have been reported in a member's profile. 4) It's impossible to know the condition of the car's that owners report on the Forum, unless they describe it, and if they do you can't search for cars by condition.

As a vehicle historian, this is frustrating. So, I have done a couple things as a work-around. First: I have become an Administrator of the 56 & 57 Continental Mark II Facebook page. My personal objective in doing this is to identify previously "lost" Mark II's and to encourage Mark II enthusiasts to join this Forum. Also, I have a broader objective to support, educate and assist Mark II owners and enthusiasts.

Second, I have developed my own Registry to identify existent Mark II's and their owners. My Registry is nowhere near complete, as previously unknown cars are continually surfacing and many owners don't/won't identify their VINs. I identify these cars from multiple sources. Note: when I find one, I also update that car's history in our Forum's registry.

So far, I have identified 837 recent/current specific Mark II's and their owners.

I believe the actual number of cars existing in viable (better than parts cars) condition is probably twice that, but I can't prove it.

[Don Henschel]

A totally unrealistic question and as Pat mentioned there are owners who own them and are not members. At a nearby city to me, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, one Mark II was in storage for over 20 years and was sold 5 years ago and the last I heard is in Manitoba. The former owner wasn't on this forum either. As for how many of them are even around?? Buddy Holiday's publication from the early 70's guestimated around 1500 and that was 50 years ago. From time to time I see units being parted out and once parted out they are often scrapped. A more realistic question would be how many in VARIOUS STATES OF CONDITION would be more realistic to ask but even that is impossible to guesstimate.
An easier to answer question would be how many two tone are left of the 68 that left the factory. Yes some of them have been wrecked as well and likely less than half of them are still around including mine C56K3391.