How many 1956 Chevy sedan delivery were made?
Public records do not show a precise, universally accepted total for the 1956 Chevrolet sedan delivery; most reputable catalogs place production in the low tens of thousands, with estimates commonly cited around 20,000 to 30,000 units.
The question touches on a niche body style from Chevrolet's Tri-Five era, and numbers can vary by source. Here is what the record shows and why exact tallies are hard to pin down.
Background: What is a sedan delivery?
A sedan delivery is a two-door, car-based wagon with an extended cargo area designed for business use. In the 1950s, automakers offered such outfits with more utility and fewer passenger seats, making them popular with small shops and tradespeople. The 1956 Chevrolet sedan delivery sits within this lineage, sharing mechanicals with the Bel Air/Two-Door models while adopting a panel-like rear cargo space.
What production figures are available?
Official, year-by-year production disclosures from General Motors rarely break out the sedan delivery as a separate line item. As a result, historians rely on factory data archives, period literature, and collector databases to estimate totals. The numbers reported by enthusiasts vary, and there is no single definitive public record for the 1956 model year.
- Hemmings Motor News and similar enthusiast publications often present approximate totals for niche body styles like sedan deliveries, noting the lack of a formal published figure from GM.
- Online catalogs such as automobile-catalog.com provide model-year pages that include production notes, but these are compiled from multiple sources and may differ by edition.
- GM corporate archives, dealer bulletins, and production summaries exist, but access is restricted and not always itemized by body style in public releases.
- Collector databases and registries (car clubs, museums, and auction catalogs) attempt to tally surviving examples and infer original production through serial ranges, but these methods are indirect.
Even with these sources, the published numbers for the 1956 sedan delivery are not consistent across references, reflecting gaps in official disclosures and the model's relatively small production footprint compared with more common passenger cars.
Estimated ranges and what they imply
Because there is no canonical figure, estimates typically fall within a broad range. Researchers and enthusiasts often cite a total on the order of tens of thousands, with some sources leaning toward the mid-to-high teens thousands and others toward the low-to-mid twenties thousands. These are best treated as informed approximations rather than exact tallies.
- Low range: roughly 15,000 to 20,000 units
- Mid range: roughly 20,000 to 30,000 units
- Upper range: some observers push estimates toward 30,000–40,000, though this is less common and less corroborated
These ranges reflect the uncertainties around factory-disclosed data and the challenge of separating sedan deliveries from other two-door utility Chevrolet models in historical records.
Why the exact number matters to collectors
For collectors and historians, production totals help determine rarity, guide restoration priorities, and inform valuations. The sedan delivery's rarity in the Tri-Five era has a meaningful impact on pricing for well-preserved examples today, even as exact production counts remain elusive.
Summary
In short, there is no publicly confirmed, authoritative figure for how many 1956 Chevrolet sedan deliveries were built. The body style is relatively uncommon, and available data come from secondary sources and extrapolations rather than a single GM official tally. The consensus among enthusiasts places the total somewhere in the tens of thousands, with estimates generally ranging from about 15,000 to 30,000. For precise validation, researchers should consult archival GM production reports and dedicated Chevrolet registries and compare multiple reputable sources.
