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My best friend growing up--his parents owned one of the first '55 T-birds, bought new at Cortese Ford in Richmond, CA. He couldn't remember why the headlight rings were chrome but he said it came that way.
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A friend who used to do Thunderbird restorations told me (so take it for what it's worth) that the first 100 cars off the line had those chome headlight rings, and it essentially triples their value.