Nice car John! My sister had a 56 T Bird in Turquoise and white with a ported hardtop. It too had a 312 but with a 3 speed manual. This was a nice car she had back in the mid 80’s!
All 1955-57 T-Birds had a 4 bbl carb. except the 1957 292, which had a 2 bbl carb. And the 2-4 bbl carb introduced in 1956 and the E-code 1957 and of course there was a supercharged F-Code in 1957 too.