Is there such a thing as a cool Desoto?

BTW, that looks to my eye to be a '57 330-C FirePower there!

 

Dean Martin was one of several celebrity owners of the early FVs.
Pic thanks to WoodyBoater.

 

Ava Gardner and one of her THREE Facels, thanks to Tommi! Just
a few of the other luminaries in entertainment who owned early Facels
were Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Danny Kaye, Joan
Fontaine, Fred Astaire, Ringo Starr, artist Pablo Picasso and racer
Stirling Moss.

These Franco-Yankee hybrids were also owned by wealthy folk in
business, industry, government and, yes, a few Middle Eastern princes
with spare petro-bucks!

 

Talk about a shoe-horn job. Here's a '57 FV4 with a big FirePower Hemi snug in its tight bay!
This was the year Facel switched from DeS to the even bigger Chrysler, SO this pic is only for
the sake of illustrating the challenge of stuffing any MoPar Hemi into a Euro auto! LOL. Facel
was said to have offered the letter-series 300 engines, and dual fours seem to support that.



A real Anglo-French factory hotrod! Photo thanks to eBizAutos.

 

Yeah, but none of 'em that I've seen have been early fifties four doors.

 

Your comment is very FAIR, bro! As mentioned, the series from '49-'54 are my least favorite of the breed. These are the (IMO) dowdy librarians' cars dictated by then-leader KT Keller. He valued ENGINEERING above style, and DeSotos certainly were both reliable AND comfortable. He also put a lot of effort into making dough from government and industrial contracts (meaning NON-automotive, you know?)

But clean, good-running originals can be slammed, rebooted, repainted and become good Saturday-night cruisers.

That said, it took Keller retiring and a change of the guard to turn DeSotos into SNAZZY cars, which they were indeed from '55 through '59.

 

Can't believe I just found this thread.
Yes there are some cool Desotos
Here are mine.

My 1956 Desoto UTE imported from Australia. As it was stated before in the thread it has a 54 Plymouth sedan body platform with a convertible X frame for rigidity and the rear roof section and window are 46-48 Plymouth. All of the custom bed work was done by the factory. The grille is also export specific.

And I own one of these 1958 Desoto Firemite cars with a Briggs 6B motor that were used in dealership promotions.

 

That said, it took Keller retiring and a change of the guard to turn DeSotos into SNAZZY cars, which they were indeed from '55 through '59._____________________________________ I concur, and in the 60's and 70's some of most domineering on the drag strip!

 

Thanks for the input, WillBe. Since we had THREE Hemi DeSotos in our family -- plowing up a couple of hundred thousand miles -- I felt it was just a bit SAD that they became an inside secret in other apps.

Guys pulled DeS Hemis from now-CHEAP, unwanted, CANCELLED cars and stuck 'em into local drag cars, boats, circle-track cars, etc. -- USUALLY MINUS those sparkplug covers. THAT way, nobody would know that you were running a lowly DeSoto engine!

 

Welcome, RoadKill! The gauntlet has been thrown. WillBe rightly noted that -- despite
the header -- the original poster was particularly asking to see COOL FOUR-DOORS. SO,
though I'm going to continue posting cool models, years and bodies from the '20, through
the '50s ('59 is my cutoff), I do believe we can show plenty of moredor DeSotos with great
cruise and custom potential, eh?








Our own RoadKillontheWeb alerted everybody in '07 about the estate auction of probably
THE most complete DeSoto collection ever with his thread, "Major Desoto collection for sale
this summer in Iowa." The above '49 woody was one of the cream puffs auctioned! And
what HAMBer doesn't drool for woody wagons???

 

And a '50 DeS DeLuxe woody with original rack at the '08 Hershey Fall Meet, thanks
to TipTopWebsite.

 

'57 Fireflite Explorer wagon, thanks to TipTopWebsite. Sumbitch is LOOOONNNGG!

 

Here's one DIFFERENT DeSoto 4-door, the 1950 Carry-All. Introduced specifically
to compete with Kaiser-Frazer's Traveler and Vagabond utility sedans. Imagine
taking the family to a car show in this rare beast! With less than 4,000 built, it
would stand out.






Here's another detail shot thanks to Richard of the FlickR community.

 

'55 Fireflite special spring option package, the tri-tone 4DS
Coronado was only offered in limited numbers '54 and '55
and is highly prized today. Pic thanks to HowStuffWorks.


Rear quarter thanks to AllPar.

 

Another clean Coronado, photo thanks to Farm3 on FlickR.

 

Cool? Maybe not. But certainly different. 56 wagon, was my dads a while back.

Later,Bill

 

Yup, they ARE cool, and that one looks to be in decent shape for an eventual return to the asphalt, bro. I have pix. Lemme go find 'em!

 

Those early hemis, although not big in cu ins, powered many early dragsters, gassers and altereds to the marker first and still are neat as hell in street rod/hot rod!

 

All this and wires too? Super-rare '56 Firedome wagon with original rack and 230-hp Hemi, thanks
to GoodGuys. Myself, I have never seen a '55 or '56 DeS wagon near this condition.





Under the hood, there are pluses and minuses. The motor is definitely a 330 two-barrel DeS Hemi.
But, someone took liberties with color on the wire covers. And the firewall is way off. Maybe,
someone put modern AC on this, replacing the original, complicated unit.

 

Right on, WillBe. Sure, the Whales were far out-stripped by the later Elephants. BUT, when the Chrysler, DeSoto and Dodge Hemis came out, they were the product of compromise and trade-offs IN ORDER to make the Hemi tame enough for passenger-car use. After all, that was the necessary market niche for MoPar to move units and make dough.

Chrysler Corp. engineers had done thousands of hours of research and trials during the war on various engine configs utilizing hemispherical combustion chambers. One experiment involved an INVERTED Hemi that churned, as I recall, some 2,000 ponies and was successfully implanted into an experimental P-47 Thunderbolt. Naturally, those wartime Hemis had radical aviation camming. SO, milder cams lobes, plus low compression to run on regular pump gas, were a couple of automatic trade-offs for auto app. It was up to hotrodders and racers to bring out the full performance potential of the early Whales.

That said, the '51 FirePower (preceding the DeS Firedome by a year) was 331-CID. Note! These cranked 10 percent more power than the identical displacement Caddy 331, which was a more conventional OHV mill.

Moreover, it didn't take long for performance-minded guys to realize that the lightest Chrysler, Saratoga two-door with the Firepower was more than a match for the Olds Rocket 88. The Chrysler factory 'rod, though, was more dough than the Olds.

The Hemi story is a fascinating one. I could read and listen to guys all day and night on the subject. God bless the HAMB!

 

Yah Thats Sweet!!! Of course DeSotos are Kool!!!


"MoPar Or No Kar"

 

Hey, FinMan! I think you and I are just a little bit, uh, PREJUDICED! LOL

 

Man, that firewall cover held on with self tapping screws looks bad! Why would you cover the stock firewall in the firstplace? It looks like it still has the heater hooked up, so no massive hole from the blower motor to try and cover up... It just doesn't make sense to me. Even if they did it just for looks why not cover the whole firewall, and not just a few parts of it?

 

Yeah, on an otherwise well-done car, that is pretty lame. I'd keep the hood closed.

 

Before people started robbing DeSotos of their teeth for Merc customs, those grilles looked damned good in, well . . . DeSotos!

 

In a DeSoto kind o' way, they were headed in a better direction
as the '50 -- shown here with a Kaiser-like, bulbous nose -- began to
transition toward the first of the "toothy" DeS grilles ('51 in next post).
And the humpy hood also started to morph into a more pancake style.
Not a complete solution, but at least it was a step away from the con-
servative Mr-C, librarian and pastor's styling toward something with
a tad more flair.

As sales got sodden after the post-war boom ended, Chrysler had to
borrow in order to turn things around, Old Man Keller got put to pasture,
and Exner's "Forward Look" debuted for '55. I suppose, sometimes,
the dominoes just have to fall in a usual and predictable order, eh?




'50 DeS Custom 4-D-S, thanks to BarnsOwl at CarPictures.

 

'51 DeS DeLuxe 4DS, thanks to FlickR. With that visor, wide-whites and that grille, I reckon
this four-door DeS would grab attention at lots of venues, even though it's dead stock.

 

Chris Binder was a car buddy of mine that owned that amazing collection =f Desoto's from Spenser IA. My favorite 4 door in the collection had to be the 58 ambulance. I found it in Kamrar IA but could not afford it so I told Chris about it.

It was a shame to break up the collection but it was also a shame to have them all locked up in the barns were very few people could see them. Chris was very secretive about his collection and only listed the 38 cabriolet in the Desoto club roster. Here are some of the more doors from his collection, but the collection had a lot of coupes and convertibles also.

 

​

PBase member artist G. Walter Coles created this technically stunning rendering
for AntiqueOldcars of the '55 DeSoto tri-tone 4-door Coronado special spring
edition. Do yourself a favor and search Walter to see more of his fine work!
Also, he's willing to make quality prints of any of his work (LOTS of auto makes,
BTW) suitable to frame and display in your den, garage or man cave.

 

Is there such a thing as a cool Desoto?
Yes if you get one from Alaska.