A low-cost Firesweep collection based mostly on the 122-inch Dodge platform joined the line in an effort to increase DeSoto’s market territory. A lot bolder, totally up-to-date new Exner styling and extra-powerful engines stood to turn things around for 1955. Firedome (the “d” now not capitalized) now played “second banana” to a brand new uplevel Fireflite line. Certainly, for all this pleasure, DeSoto was now threatened once more, solely this time by an upwardly cellular Dodge and a downward growth of the Chrysler line. Carrying a new 341-cid, 320-horsepower Hemi, it was a part of that year’s expanded Highland Park performance squadron along with the Chrysler 300B, Plymouth Fury, and Dodge D-500. Additionally managed by Highland Park’s pushbuttons, it was an incredible transmission that may way outlive DeSoto. At $4369, the ‘fifty eight Adventurer ragtop was probably the most-costly DeSoto ever, although Chrysler’s convertible 300D cost nearly $1300 extra. Riding a shortened 111-inch wheelbase, Adventurer I used to be an off-white, shut-coupled coupe sporting exterior exhausts, wire wheels, and full instrumentation. A Seville hardtop coupe replaced the previous Firedome Particular.

Following GM’s lead in ’55, DeSoto launched three 4-door hardtops for ’56: a Sportsman in every series and a low-priced Firedome Seville. No surprise. The ’57s weren’t solely all-new for the second time in three years, but superbly engineered and strikingly styled. Predictably, the ’58 DeSotos were much just like the ’57s save busier grilles and trim, and customary quad headlights. Other models carried a big-bore 361 with 295 bhp in standard Firedome tune, 305 with twin four-barrels in Fireflites (optional on Firedomes), 345 in excessive-compression Adventurer guise, and a smashing 355 for Adventurers with optionally available Bendix gas injection. Painted deep red and lacking bumpers, it was very sleek however not fairly as built-in as Adventurer I, and wasn’t significantly thought-about for manufacturing. Do not race to that crimson mild after which peel out when it turns green — fast braking and accelerating wastes fuel. Some companies watch oil and gasoline prices as an indicator of a superb economy, while different firms may decide whether to rent based on their own efficiency as determined by client spending. Pouring diesel gas into an unleaded gas tank can be an enormous inconvenience, but it wouldn’t destroy your automobile.

Manufacturers have lengthy installed tires that would enhance gasoline efficiency rankings on new cars, however automobile homeowners looking for those same fuel-saving tires when it got here time to replace the originals had been out of luck. Each shared a 126-inch wheelbase with that 12 months’s Chryslers, and carried a Hemi bored out to 291 cid. They packed 345 bhp from a modestly bored 345 Hemi. Engines and energy rankings swelled, but the advanced Hemi was ever expensive to build, so Chrysler began switching to cheaper wedgehead V-8s for ’58. Amongst them have been two new “Turboflash” DeSoto engines. The 2 higher series used the 341 V-eight from the ’56 Adventurer with 270 and 295 horsepower, respectively. Some states hadn’t accepted “quadrilights” for ’57, so DeSoto entrance fenders were designed to just accept one or two lamps each, the latter the place law permitted. Convertibles have been obtainable in both ‘fifty five DeSoto sequence however saw minuscule gross sales: just 625 Firedomes and 775 Fireflites. The FireDome powered a new like-named top-of-the-line 1952 sequence that duplicated Custom choices save the Suburban. For 1953, remaining Custom/DeLuxe fashions have been combined into a brand new Powermaster Six series that still lagged behind FireDome in gross sales, this time by a margin of 2-1. Each lines included Sportsman hardtops.

The plush Coronado sedan, a mid-1954 addition to the Firedome line, returned as a 1955 “spring special” Fireflite at $a hundred above the $2800 common sedan. Firedome offered DeSoto’s only ’55 wagon, together with a detrimmed Particular hardtop priced some $one hundred ten below its Sportsman counterpart. A midseason highlight was the limited-version Adventurer hardtop coupe, a supercar awash in gold-anodized aluminum trim. Adventurer II adopted in ’55, a normal-chassis four-seat fastback shaped more by Ghia than Exner. Most have been constructed by Ghia in Italy. Though it instantly garnered nearly 50,000 sales, DeSoto as an entire might do no higher than 88,000 for the mannequin yr. Because hybrids are so efficient to start with, they’re nonetheless a greater green driving option — even when it’s cold out. Through the period of strong economy, companies and other products are in great demand. Virgil Exner’s dramatic new styling made finned fantasies of all ’57 Chrysler products. The growing influence of newly recruited styling chief Virgil Exner was evident in an update of DeSoto’s extra-massive ‘fifty two look, with new one-piece windshields and more-liberal chrome accents.