There's one here in the Reading, PA area. Nice job, too. I don't think I have a pic, but I'll go through my albums this weekend. Come to think on it, I think I do have a shot of another '55 Ford with a Carson top. Both cars usually make the Wheels of Time R&C show in Macungie, PA - which just happens to start tomorrow...
The Reading-based car used to be purple, was painted a deep red two years ago or so. I saw it at a local show last weekend. It has a wide oval mouth with a tube grille. Taillights are flat lens, kind of teardrop style. And a white, thickly padded carson top. No pic found so far. The other car that I mis-remembered, is actually a chopped two-door sedan with a white steel top. But the top looks like a Carson in shape. Pic below, from Macungie, a few years ago.
Carson tops were getting passe' by the mid fifties. The rounded contours usually worked better on rounded cars of the forties and early fifties. The 54's were the last body style to use Carson style with any frequency. Dick Korkes' 1954 Ford, the Parisienne, had a padded half-top. I remember a sectioned Ford by Batson Metal Works (?) from the eighties or early nineties with a black padded top. But I think that was a '54, too. There were some Carsons on '55-'56 T-Birds, but I don't think that's what you have in mind. In Philly, the Derham body company was still doing padded leather over steel tops in the fifties, but mostly on Chrysler products.
I think the Reading area car is a 53 with the giant moulded grille shell and the tube grille as a matter of fact Im sure,but now that you mentioned it Korky did a chopped 56 convert also which had a lift off half top with landau bars.
Ha, I wish I could say it's not true. Maybe this winter we'll get that squared away. Nothing looks like ass more then a van continental kit trim ring. PUKE!
I shouldn't post when I am getting sleepy. That red one IS a '53! Don't know what I was thinking about!