A low-price Firesweep series based mostly on the 122-inch Dodge platform joined the line in an effort to extend DeSoto’s market territory. A lot bolder, absolutely up-to-date new Exner styling and extra-highly effective engines stood to turn issues around for 1955. Firedome (the “d” no longer capitalized) now performed “second banana” to a brand new uplevel Fireflite line. Indeed, for all this pleasure, DeSoto was now threatened again, only this time by an upwardly cellular Dodge and a downward expansion of the Chrysler line. Carrying a brand new 341-cid, 320-horsepower Hemi, it was part of that 12 months’s expanded Highland Park performance squadron along with the Chrysler 300B, Plymouth Fury, and Dodge D-500. Also controlled by Highland Park’s pushbuttons, it was a terrific transmission that may approach outlive DeSoto. At $4369, the ’58 Adventurer ragtop was the most-costly DeSoto ever, although Chrysler’s convertible 300D price nearly $1300 extra. Riding a shortened 111-inch wheelbase, Adventurer I used to be an off-white, close-coupled coupe sporting outside exhausts, wire wheels, and full instrumentation. A Seville hardtop coupe replaced the earlier Firedome Particular.

Following GM’s lead in ’55, DeSoto introduced three four-door hardtops for ’56: a Sportsman in each series and a low-priced Firedome Seville. No marvel. The ’57s were not solely all-new for the second time in three years, however superbly engineered and strikingly styled. Predictably, the ’58 DeSotos had been a lot just like the ’57s save busier grilles and trim, and customary quad headlights. Other fashions carried a giant-bore 361 with 295 bhp in commonplace 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 non-obligatory Bendix gas injection. Painted deep crimson and missing bumpers, it was very sleek but not quite as built-in as Adventurer I, and wasn’t seriously thought-about for manufacturing. Do not race to that pink mild and then peel out when it turns green — fast braking and accelerating wastes fuel. Some companies watch oil and fuel costs as an indicator of an excellent economy, while different companies might determine whether to rent based on their very own efficiency as decided by client spending. Pouring diesel gasoline into an unleaded gasoline tank can be an enormous inconvenience, however it wouldn’t destroy your automotive.

Manufacturers have long installed tires that will improve fuel efficiency ratings on new vehicles, but automobile house owners looking for those self same fuel-saving tires when it got here time to exchange the originals were out of luck. Each shared a 126-inch wheelbase with that year’s Chryslers, and carried a Hemi bored out to 291 cid. They packed 345 bhp from a modestly bored 345 Hemi. Engines and power rankings swelled, however the complex Hemi was ever expensive to construct, so Chrysler started switching to cheaper wedgehead V-8s for ’58. Amongst them were two new “Turboflash” DeSoto engines. The 2 higher series used the 341 V-8 from the ’56 Adventurer with 270 and 295 horsepower, respectively. Some states hadn’t authorised “quadrilights” for ’57, so DeSoto front fenders had been designed to simply accept one or two lamps every, the latter the place law permitted. Convertibles have been out there in each ’55 DeSoto collection however noticed minuscule gross sales: just 625 Firedomes and 775 Fireflites. The FireDome powered a brand new like-named high-of-the-line 1952 sequence that duplicated Custom offerings save the Suburban. For 1953, remaining Customized/DeLuxe fashions had been combined into a new Powermaster Six sequence that still lagged behind FireDome in gross sales, this time by a margin of 2-1. Both strains included Sportsman hardtops.

The plush Coronado sedan, a mid-1954 addition to the Firedome line, returned as a 1955 “spring particular” Fireflite at $a hundred above the $2800 regular sedan. Firedome offered DeSoto’s only ’55 wagon, together with a detrimmed Special hardtop priced some $one hundred ten beneath its Sportsman counterpart. A midseason highlight was the limited-version Adventurer hardtop coupe, a supercar awash in gold-anodized aluminum trim. Adventurer II followed in ’55, a standard-chassis 4-seat fastback formed extra by Ghia than Exner. Most had been constructed by Ghia in Italy. Although it instantly garnered almost 50,000 sales, DeSoto as a whole might do no higher than 88,000 for the model year. As a result of hybrids are so efficient to begin with, they’re nonetheless a better green driving option — even when it is chilly out. Through the period of sturdy economy, services and different products are in great demand. Virgil Exner’s dramatic new styling made finned fantasies of all ’57 Chrysler merchandise. The growing influence of newly recruited styling chief Virgil Exner was evident in an update of DeSoto’s extra-large ‘fifty two look, with new one-piece windshields and more-liberal chrome accents.