This could very well be one of the best cars of the 1950s that you've never heard of. And it's a DeSoto. A DeSoto, you say? Yes. Although we generally think of that marque as something of an old man's car, they did produce one whopper of a car for five years, including the only DeSoto ever to be the official pace car of the Indy 500. Elegance, power, and exceptional handling. In a DeSoto.
Not that your humble correspondent has such a deep knowledge of 1950s car culture. . .I've traditionally not paid too much attention until 1961 or so and leave the '50s to the crowd that grew up with Bill Haley, Elvis, and James Dean. Save for the Nomad I've never been a big fan of those bulbous chrome-covered monstrosities. File this one under happenstance and an eye for car-related paraphernalia. I was at an estate sale recently and found an exceptionally well cared-for DeSoto Adventurer sitting in the garage. It wasn't for sale, or even display really (I talked a family member into letting me see it), but it was entirely worth spending some time ogling at the obvious care that went into restoring it and even modifying its already-prodigious powerplant.
Although this was an estate sale, the gentleman in question is still very much alive, but he's 92 and his wife recently died so rather than live in an empty house, he moved elsewhere and had a house full of stuff to deal with. And among the knickknacks and mementos and varied detritus accumulated over a good long life, this car was sitting out in the garage, a fitting testimony to a life well-lived.
This last one was at the home of a former Boeing engineer who worked there for 40 years, even doing some work on the ill-fated SST project.Consequently, there were a lot of engineering doo-dads such as a slide rule (already have one), and an old TI SR-50A calculator in its original box with the charger and user manual (score! $5, though the calculator inside turned out to be a TI-55; eh, no big deal). I also noticed a lot of old car magazines and memorabilia, including a bunch of plastic and metal models, all from the 1950s and most Thunderbirds. Quite a few De Soto objects were around, too, so I suspected he was an aficionado of both in one form or other.
I chatted with a family friend and rather jokingly asked where his Thunderbird and DeSotos were.
"Oh, you noticed that stuff, huh? Here, I've got something to show you."
He took me back to the garage, unlocked it, and there were two beauties sitting with their hoods open like they were ready for a show: a 1955 Thunderbird and a DeSoto whose model I had never even heard of before. My eyebrows shot up so fast I thought I was going to pull a muscle. I'd seen plenty of T-Birds before, but rarely a DeSoto. And this one was a fabulous shape and then some.
The Adventurer began life as a Fireflite, introduced in 1955 along with Chrysler's new "Forward Look" redesign of its line. The Fireflite was DeSoto's flagship model and used the relatively new-for-DeSoto Hemi cylinder design V8 to grunt out a very respectable 255 bhp from its 330 cubic inches by 1956. The original Fireflite lacked the ginormous fins that appeared with the '57 models but it was a handsome car with its long and low look and 2-tone paint. The 1956 Fireflite convertible was chosen to be the pacecar at the Indy 500 (a DeSoto!): it was decked out in white and gold paint and DeSoto made 400 replicas based on it and called them Pacesetters (photo). Plymouth had also used a similar color scheme for its new Fury.
The Adventurer that bowed in 1956 was based largely on the Pacesetter design: a 2-door coupe with some combination of white, gold, and black color schemes with the roof panel the opposite color of the main body. It also had "turbine-style" hubcaps of anodized gold color, which you had to remove completely to get access to the tire valve; not exactly practical, but nothing to upset the nice clean lines either. The interior was similar, gold vinyl with tweed inserts -- it was a DeSoto, after all -- and black carpeting with gold flecks in it. The steering wheel had similar gold accents in it. The transmission was a 2-speed and used Chrysler's push-button selector. Looking at the whole thing, you get the feeling it was decidedly not designed in piecemeal fashion, everything fitting together as an element of a larger whole.
At the time, Chrysler's 300-series was the big boy on the block, getting the lion's share of performance and luxury features, not to mention attention. At the lower end, Dodge and Plymouth were bringing up the bottom end as far as performance was concerned, so it was difficult to see where the Adventurer might fit in. Initially, DeSoto described the Adventurer as a "limited edition" but they eventually started to give it its own particular personality. They bored out the engine and added a bunch of other performance hardware to both the engine and suspension to create a fast, nicely handling big coupe within a hair's breadth of the 300, which they were clearly shooting for. . .and for about $700 less than the 300 to boot.
In 1957, it got another facelift, along with other Chrysler models, this time with quad headlights and larger tailfins, and they also added a convertible. DeSoto bored the engine a bit more to 345 cubic inches and with its dual 4-barrel carbs obtained 345 bhp from it: nominally the first car to do so, though the 300 usually claims title to that spec. Otherwise, it got a number of enhancements for both show and go, but color schemes remained the same white-gold-black of the '56.
They did, however, offer a record player, Chrysler's "Hi-Way Hi-Fi" which fit under the dash (it popped out of the dash on other models). It really wasn't a popular option and they are prized by collectors today. The turntable itself was designed by CBS-Columbia and only played proprietary records pressed by CBS-Columbia, about 7 inches in diameter. Supposedly, they could be played while driving, but some have questioned this ability. As Chrysler's press release noted, the marketing wasn't altogether different from today's in-car DVD players, although the artistic selections differ somewhat:
For driver and passengers who prefer the lively scores of Broadway musicals, Highway Hi-Fi provides the lilting and memorable tunes from the hit show, "Pajama Game."
And if the children are restless on a long ride, Davey Crockett and Gene Autry are ready at hand to help keep them quiet. [quoted here]
'57 was the high point for the model, selling almost 2,000 units. Changes after 1957 were largely cosmetic, although they offered an (ultimately problematic) fuel-injected engine in 1958, and dropped the convertible for a 4-door (ick) in 1960. The Hemi was also dropped in favor of the wedge-head V8 and in 1960 you could get ram induction. DeSoto continued to go after the 300 and always ended up with a decent price advantage over it but it never quite achieved the same status as that marque. It also had quality problems including rusting around the headlights and rocker panels and suspension problems, among other niggly little things. The design just got uglier, too, with the grille area eventually looking like it had taken a bite out of a lemon. The economy hit a recession in 1958 which didn't help matters, making for something of a squeeze on the middle-range car market which DeSoto largely occupied. Sales for the Adventurer declined markedly in 1958 (only 432), rebounded a bit in 1959 (687), but cratered across the whole DeSoto line in 1960; oddly, "Adventurers" accounted for 11,597 units in 1960, but this had more to do with the dilution of the DeSoto brand across models -- the Adventurer was by this time just the top trim model of the 2-series -- than with any great leap by the Adventurer.
I suppose one could call it a failure as it never sold that well, had numerous problems (albeit shared with a lot of Chrysler models of the time), and never got the recognition of its more upscale 300 sibling. A lot of this had to do with the DeSoto brand itself which just wasn't thought of as a performance luxury brand, and they didn't have much expertise in promoting it; Chrysler didn't help, as it didn't even appear in the Chrysler Fall catalog until the 1959 model year. On the other hand, I think it's one of the more handsome cars to come out of that era and it gives one the impression of a car that really had a lot of thought put into it, from the mechanicals to the aesthetics, by people who really wanted to produce "the finest automobile DeSoto has ever built" [quoted here]. Perhaps they had a feeling that DeSoto was soon to be history (which it was) and wanted to go out with a bang. And bang they did. One of the great unsung cars of the luxury-muscle cars of the late '50s, they are highly collectible these days, with prices I've seen ranging up into the $2-300,000 range.
As for this particular car, Lloyd and his wife Donna had bought it used from a dealer in Bellingham, WA on July 12, 1959 and have owned it ever since. This '57 had the 345/345 Hemi which Lloyd rebuilt in 1970, boring and stroking it some to give what he says was 500 horses (yikes). He also redid much of the interior himself making sure to get the correct patterns and colors (seems he was a stickler for detail, and it shows). He actually did all of the restoration work himself except for the paint, and most of that after he retired. Along with the '55 Thunderbird -- which he put together from two cars -- the DeSoto is staying with the family and supposedly will go to a nice climate-controlled garage for safekeeping. I'm guessing this one was probably appraised in the low $100,000s (convertibles seem to be the most highly prized) which makes for a fine little nest egg were it to be sold, which family members say ain't gonna happen. So thanks, Lloyd, for keeping this great bit of history in such fine shape.
Credits: The gold Adventurer is from Edward Petrus' Ultimate 1957 DeSoto site, and the Fireflite pace car photo is from Wikimedia Commons. The image of the record player is from HowStuffWorks, which also has a good long history of the Adventurer with far more detail than is presented here. The remainder are photos I took myself of the estate sale car.