Actually, they all had Hemi’s that year, at least the ’56 DeSoto Fireflite sedans like this one did. I drove past it on the way back from an appointment and I thought, “wait, that’s not a ’55 Chevy,” so I turned around and went back. I happened to have my camera with me since Vancouver has such a bewildering number of old cars and I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping it stashed in my car.
I knocked on the door and asked the owner, Chuck, permission to shoot some pics (telling him about the website, naturally). He suspiciously asked if I even knew the name of the car about which I was inquiring, but his attitude softened when I correctly identified it as a ’56 Desoto. I told him about some of the Mopars my family’s had as well, including a ’70 Plymouth Fury, a ’79 B200 van and my mother’s ’62 Dart. By then, he said I was a true believer and started listing the many, many Chrysler products he’d owned, including, most notably, a Super Bee with a race-spec 426 Hemi.
His DeSoto, however, has to be nearly as rare–I wonder how many still exist. 18,207 four-door Fireflite sedans were sold for 1956 and at 3860 pounds, not including six seats filled with one’s wife and kids, along with a trunk full of vacation luggage, buyers needed that Hemi. Desoto offered a decent variety of options that year and the base price of the car with the standard 330 was $3,119.
V mesh grill with emblem still attached!
I couldn’t tell whether or not this example had A/C, but since this is Vacouver, I suspect not; in any case, Airtemp air conditioning was $567. Other options (and their prices) included: heater and defroster for $92; a power front seat at $70; $102 for power windows ($32 if you wanted them made of tinted glass); a $24 electric clock; power steering and brakes for $97 and $40, respectively; and whitewalls for $30.
The interior needs some work, but it looks like nothing’s missing. Chuck said he bought the car a couple of years ago and he’s slowly getting it in shape. He mentioned an ignition problem that’s been bugging him but he’s able to bypass it by hot wiring the car.
I was quite fond of the V-8 emblem on the fuel filler door. It’s a reminder to be generous with the premium and to forget about the ol’ MPGs. Anyone out there know the mileage these cars got? My guess would be 10 in the city and maybe 15 on the highway.
The standards means of motorvation for all Fireflites was a 330.4 CID Firedome Hemi making 255 hp in front of a Powerflight auto, the latter in its third year of service at DeSoto. Chuck didn’t offer to open the hood for me and I didn’t want to seem pushy, so this pic is from the ‘net. The following is cribbed from American Cars 1946-1959:
Several engineering advances appeared on the 1956 DeSoto line. Most important was a change to a 12-volt electrical system, necessitated by the proliferation of electrically powered accessories in recent years. As if to prove the point, new options for 1956 included a power radio antenna, Highway Hi-Fi record player and front power seat with more adjustment options. The powerful V8 engine was again enlarged, this time into two new versions. Firedome and Fireflite models received a 330.4 CID version with up to 255 horsepower output. A higher output 341 CID version was created for a special new model, the Fireflite Adventurer.
I like the headlight ring. It’s a nice detail you don’t really see anymore.
The Adventurer was powered by the new 341 CID engine with dual exhausts, custom interior appointments and trim, and special exterior finishes. Also called Golden Adventurer, the sporty 2-door hardtop was technically a subseries of the Fireflite and DeSoto’s lower-priced, lower-powered cousin of the Chrysler 300, offering a padded instrument panel, power front seat, power windows, power brakes, and a heavy-duty suspension as standard over lesser Fireflites.
1955 shown at left; 1956, at right
For 1956, the vertical bar grille used since 1946 was gone, replaced by a mesh style grille with a large “V” centered within, and the large front bumper guards now incorporated the parking lamps. Other changes included a hooded headlight ring, a short-lived styling craze seen on some other ’56 models. Around back, the rear fender line was slightly raised with a new taillight design capping off the raised tailfin.
Set into a hooded quarter panel, stacked “Control Tower” tail lamps set atop a large U-shaped bumper end that housed the exhaust outlet defined the rear. Full-length bodyside trim (or the upper trim piece on two-tone models) was changed to an upswept section that ended at the tip of the hooded rear fender, with an aim to emphasize the length and leanness of the overall shape.
It worked; while it would be gone in a few short years, customers bought the DeSoto in record numbers now that the dowdiness which defined its 1949-1954 predecessor had been banished, and although the 1957 redesign would cement the car as an even more stylish, high-performance trendsetter, cars like Chuck’s ’56 represent the brand’s final high water mark. As a rather basic pillared sedan, it might have seemed slightly ordinary compared to the more expensive the Adventurer and dramatic Sportsman hardtops when new, but its styling has worn quite well thanks to Exner’s initial expression of Forward Look styling.
Chuck told me he didn’t have a computer, but I hope he sees this someday and thinks that I gave his car some righteous justice. It seems to be complete (except for hubcaps) and should be easy to restore without an exhaustive, potentially fruitless search for trim pieces; it’s truly remarkable that all the chrome trim and lettering is still on the car after fifty-eight years. As a long-term labor of love, Chuck deserves to show off his baby and I hope to see this pink DeSoto streaking through a Vancouver Friday night soon.
Damn! DeSoto (and Chrysler Corporation) at their finest. While I rather like the 57-58 models, these were Chrysler styling at their best. And very close to the best that Detroit did in the 50’s.
Great find! Although I tend to think about it less than other Mopar brands, I do have a soft spot for DeSoto. It’s interesting to see how many styling features this car has in common with the ’56 Imperial I wrote about last week.
love that color for a vehicle that would not be a dd. i imagine that in ’56 it was a tough sell on the lot.
i wonder what that color is called and how much it has faded since new.
sedan looks quite nice but i’ll bet a coupe looks much nicer
The closest factory colour is Iridescent Plum, which I think is darker and also metallic. My guess is this car has had an older repaint in a non-factory colour.
M2 Machines makes a 1/64 scale ’55 Fireflite, which I have an example of, and it’s almost this color. Maybe it’s the “Iridescent Plum” you’re talking about, whereas this one is more of a light purple…
While the ’57 to ’60 cars were certainly flashier, 1956 may have been the best year overall for Mopar styling. A little more outspoken than the rather modest ’55 cars but still not over the top.
This is the website that I use to look-up paint codes.
http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?year=1956&manuf=Chrysler&model=DeSoto&rows=50
If you look up pics of the ’56 DeSotos, it seems they really were pushing that atomic plum-type paint. So many restored examples and press shots are in that exact color, or something very close to it.
Breathtaking car and what a terrific find! There isn’t a bad line anywhere on this car and while it is large, it does not have an ungainly appearance that would show up later on the big Mopars. This color combination is truly eye-popping and truly accentuates the beauty of this car.
You are correct; there cannot be very many of these left. There is still at least one more besides this one.
I’m hoping for the owner to get it roadworthy again soon, so you can catch it in action!
Yes! I have one !!
55/56 mopar was such a great shape across the brands. And what a period perfect hue. Nice find.
Here’s a Hemi from a Firedome. 🙂
Great find!
My uncle’s 56 was two-tone green, a sedan.
By the way, it’s “Fireflite.”
“Lite,” it definitely isn’t.
Paul, I tried to edit the some of my text of my post after I scrolled to here and can’t. I need to correct all the ‘lites’ to ‘flites’ and I cited the wrong edition of my cars guide – it should say ‘American Cars 1946-1959’.
That’s what I get for being tired when I wrote this.
You can’t; only an Editor can. I fixed the title. if it needs more corrections, send an e-mail to Perry, as I’m heading out right now.
I also fixed the other “Firelite” typos and the dates in the text.
Thank you!
Great find Marc(and read) thanks.A real beauty I prefer the 56 Mopars to the flashy 57s,there can’t be many 4 door sedans left as they were often used as parts cars for the more glamorous 2 door cars and convertibles or stripped of their hemi engines by racers and hot rodders.
1956 was a high point in American car styling,from the humble runabouts from the big 3 to the mega expensive Continental all had a glamour and style rarely seen through a full range of cars.
The white dust on the Firedome engine reminds me of nuclear fall out. So fitting for a mid-50s car. Don’t forget to wear your Civil Defense helmet on the way to the bomb shelter!!! (Duck and cover!!!!)
Bert the Turtle approved of that post. Until he ate foliage coated with fallout.
He should have followed the instructions.
I forgot about the CONELRAD radio frequencies clearly marked as triangles on car radio dials back then. This one from a Dodge (couldn’t find a Desoto image).
I caught three Firesweeps and an Sportsman on a trailer last year:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/road-trip-classics-1957-desotos-still-riding-in-chryslers-shadow/
Hopefully going to a home that will bring them back to their former glory.
The 56 DeSoto is a beaut. As much as I like the 55 (my grandma had a pink and white Firedome sedan) I think the 56 nailed the details perfectly. An Adventurer convertible paced the 1956 Indy 500.
I would be willing to bet that this isn’t an original color, but this color actually doesnt look bad on this car.
1956 would have been a great year to buy a new car. It would have been very hard to make a bad choice.
I prefer the toothy grin ’55 front, but the ’56 rear lights were the best. Overall a great looker. The big Mopars of ’55-’56 had a solid presence. Hopefully this car will not return to it’s basic elements. My great grandfather had a ’56.
Nice car i hope it gets restored someday.
My favorite product of that era with a Chrysler Hemi was the Chrysler Air Raid Siren. It was and still is considered the most powerful siren ever built. It was loud as heck and had a range of 25 miles. It was Cold War preparation at its finest.
It was powered by a 180hp Hemi motor.
Here is a website on these
http://www.victorysiren.com/x/index.htm
Here is a pic
When I was in LA, even as late as around 1976-77 I would still hear these sirens, always on a Friday at 10:00 am. I had heard they were powered by V8 Hemi’s. Thanks for the link, always wondered what they looked like and the story behind them. Hope that Chrysler gets saved.
A Hemi-powered air raid siren? Whoa…
These were a cold war outgrowth of the original WWII Chrysler-Bell Victory Sirens. Those were powered by a straight-8 – I think – there’s little documentation on the WWII sirens, but the engine cover looks to be 8 cylinder length.
The Bell in the name was Bell Telephone – they designed the siren assembly, Chrysler designed the engine and propulsion system and mounted the whole thing on a 1/4 section of a Dodge truck frame. The engine both turned the siren mechanism and also turned the siren assembly on a circular track.
According to the website I linked above, the Chrysler Bell Victory Siren was powered by a 140hp Chrysler straight 8 that was 324 cid
http://www.victorysiren.com/x/index.htm
I like it. like the colour too, though I suspect it’s not a factory colour. The closest factory colour is Iridescent Plum, which I think is darker and also metallic. It definitely needs some TLC but it would be a good restoration candidate, the downside being that it’s a 4-door sedan.
It is nice that all the trim is still present, but if you took it all off and prepped the body for a full restoration, you’d probably wind-up looking to replace or rechrome a lot of it anyhow because it’s dented, damaged and weathered.
I like the ’56 grille because it seems less Buick-ish. The “check mark” on the tail is cool too. That would get more pronounced in later years.
Chuck’s dubiousness is a great detail. If he asked you what kind of car it was and you said, “Uh, ’57 Chevy?” I imagine he’d have fetched his 12-gauge and escorted you off the property. 🙂
I’ve been reading CC since the very beginning starting with the Holy MIgration from the heathen land of TTAC. I’ve learned a lot from you guys. He was rightly wondering why a complete stranger wanted to take pics. I’d be suspicious, too. I tend to be able to establish a rapport with people from the get-go after being a caseworker for 15 years, maybe that put him at ease. Plus my nailing the year on the first guess.
Is this where I say “TTAC who?” 😉
I actually prefer the DeSoto front to the ’56 Chrysler front. I agree with most comments that Chrysler found its Mojo with the ’55 and ’56 cars and was competitive with GM and probably ahead of Ford.
Cool car, I wish the owner well with it.
Agree 100% The ’55-’56 Mopars were a real step up, and one of the few question marks were the grilles on both year’s non-300 Chryslers. The half-split ’55 grille was very fussy, while the cleaner ’56 grille was outsized, especially the on the Windsor:
Despite what Fiatsler wants you to think with all those throwback ‘HEMI’ emblems they slap on anything with a V8 in it these days, the early Hemi is really the ancestor of what’s now being used. Back in the fifties, the ‘Hemi’ was a routine installation in the higher Chrysler lines (like the featured Desoto). While it’s true that drag racers quickly took to it, it also ran well in regular production cars.
The same can’t be said of the later 426 Hemi. That engine was a purpose-built race engine that was detuned and installed in production cars simply because of a NASCAR mandate. They were ill-suited for daily street use.
Nostalgia sells. There’s a lot of nostalgia for the 2nd gen (426) Hemi, not for the 1st gen Hemis of the 50’s. Kudos to Chrysler’s marketing department.
Chrysler could have built a detuned 426 Hemi for street use (lower CR, mild cam) if they wanted, but they chose not to. The Hemi was expensive to build relative to the 383 and 440 big blocks, whose design it was derived from. They wanted the 426 Hemi to remain “exclusive” because they didn’t want to build that many of them.
It wasn’t just NASCAR either, it was also NHRA. Offering the 426 Hemi in production cars allowed people to run them in more drag racing classes.
I would freak if I ever tried to drive something that huge, but, for my money, the best looking postwar Mopar ever.
I don’t even have to drive it to freak – just looking at the tiny non-power-assisted master brake cylinder does it for me . . .
This from somebody who drove a 6300lb 1969 Cadillac ambulance around for ten years. That car had modern brakes with front power discs that actually did quite well considering how heavy the vehicle was.
I dunno about how a ’56 would be to drive, but in ’57, they used 12″ brake drums, and up front there were two wheel cylinders per side for what they called “Total Contact” braking. So, the ’57 at least, stopped pretty well. Unfortunately, the brakes go out of adjustment pretty quickly and need regular adjustment. IIRC, they don’t “self adjust” by backing up like some drum brake setups do. Although to be fair, it seems like even the ones with self-adjusters didn’t always work right!
Oh, and you need a special wheel puller to get the rear drums off, which can be a pain.
Anyway, in normal driving they’re not bad, but I guess if the master cylinder failed, you’d be screwed if you weren’t fast on that handbrake!
If you ever drove one, you would freak out when you had to let it go. I owned a 56 Fireflite in 1970. I was 18 then, and I have been wanting one again since 1974.
My favorite Desoto, and indeed, 1956 was Chrysler’s high-water mark, in my humble view. I’ve mentioned before, my grandmother’s ’56 Firedome Seville 2-door hardtop was quite striking in its two-tone charcoal gray and pink colors. She did not have power steering or brakes, which amazed me how a woman in her late 60’s could lug that huge car around. But she did, and lived in the Palm Springs area without air conditioning, even (although she did decamp for the Idyllwild mountains every summer). I so remember riding with her often while swirling around those two-lane mountain curves in this big Desoto, how she managed it I’ll never know.
How I loved those triple “Control Tower” taillamps, I never missed a chance to check them out whenever we visited. That, and sit behind that humongous steering wheel endlessly pushing those newfangled pushbutton transmission buttons. BTW, those large U-shaped bumper ends did not house the exhaust outlets, those triangular shaped black areas were just painted trim. A stunning car, still grabs my attention. I even saw one in recent years when I lived in San Diego, a two-tone yellow and white 4-door sedan just like this one, parked in a Macy’s parking lot. And in my San Diego neighborhood, there lived a three-tone ’55 Fireflite Coronado edition, black, white, and turquoise blue, a rare bird that was produced in limited numbers for the spring selling season.
Just happened to notice, the Fireflite four-door hardtop pictured above from a brochure or ad shot is shown dockside next to what appears to be the SS America, a fleetmate to the SS United States, which ultimately met a sad fate as a wreck on the shores of Fuerteventura island in the Canary Islands. Interesting juxtaposition of two old classics!
Nice find! I well remember that color combination.
I continue to prefer the 55 DeSoto, no doubt because my great aunt and uncle purchased one new, a Firedome two-door hardtop in baby blue and white, the same color combination in the penultimate photo above. Yes, the old toothy grille but I liked the simplicity of the Continental-like taillights and lower fins. The little wand-like shifter on the dash appeared fragile but was sturdy and they liked it. The car definitely had power steering and brakes and I can’t imagine driving one of these without. But folks back then were only beginning to get used to these options and most had plenty of experience driving the big cars of the 40’s with manual steering and brakes.
My great uncle put Fingerhut clear plastic covers over the upholstery, kept the car washed, waxed, and garaged, and it still looked like new when they traded it in for a new 65 Chrysler Newport in preparation for retirement and a move from IN to CA. In part they waited to trade because they did not like the push-button transmission controls used by Chrysler from 56-64. Plus the DeSoto was a very reliable, high quality car, especially compared to the next generation.
In the 1990’s a cousin in Tucson inherited one of the 56 Pace Car convertibles from an older woman neighbor who was the original owner. Somewhat to my consternation – because I’d not had a chance to see it in person – she quickly gave it back to a younger man in the family who’d been left out of the will. Most likely it was worth a good deal on the collector market, even at that time.
The 55-56 DeSotos were very well received at the time and it was hard to believe that only 5-6 years later the marque was gone.
In a nutshell, your great aunt and uncle’s buying habits exemplified how DeSoto met its fate: Chrysler was offering downmarket models in DeSoto price territory. It lost its reason to exist.
Those DeSoto pace cars are beautiful; I’ve seen one in person. I hope that the relative that it ultimately went to took good care of it.
Chrysler certainly found their mojo in ’56. What a sweety!
What an outrageously handsome dashboard this Desoto has. And the one from the Imperial last week was equally good.
There were other standout designs before cost and safety became issues, like the dashes on the 50s Mercedes SLs and mid-60s T-birds. Those had beautiful shapes and nice details but you could typecast them to an era or style of car.
The 55-56 Chrysler dashes could just as easily be from 2015 as 1955. They were obviously intended to control a car and not a rocketship which kept them from becoming nostalgia pieces like the dash (and steering wheel) on the ’61 Chryslers.
Besides the perfect shapes and detail execution they were simple designs with relatively few metal pieces. Fewer shiny parts to corrode or break over time gives these Chrysler a big plus over other vintage cars. The dash in the Desoto feature car is about an hour away from being ready for a car show.
Incredible find Marckyle64, thanks for posting!
+1 on that great dashboard. The dazzling chrome dashes on GM cars of that period were something to behold, but this one is a masterpiece. The two deep coves, the padding (or at least what looks like padding) and painted face with little bits of chrome trim on the many dials and knobs works as well as any dash out of the 1950s
You may be aware that the ’55-’56 dashboard actually had its origins on the ’54 model, where it was one half of the dual-cove symmetrical design, but the setup of the round dials and the knobs was the same. My grandmother’s Firedome lacked a padded dash, also the electric clock, which when optioned sat as a free-standing separate unit in the center of the two coves, just above the radio. A very cool dash, indeed!
Sharp car…looks quite restorable. Hope he keeps the plum color. Hope he gets a computer too to see the great writeup you did. Also to make it easier for him to locate parts.
To answer the question of whether the featured car is AC equipped, it is not. The AC unit would be mounted in the trunk, and there would be small fresh air inlet scoops protruding from the tops of the rear quarter panels, near the rear window.
DeSoto offered TWO a/c units in ’56, one with scoops, one without, the one w/o could also be dealer installed, it operated like newer units on ‘REC’ using interior air. My ’56 has been in our family since new, is orig paint and int, I was 7 when dad bought her.
If the mpg for that Desoto is anything like the ’55 Chrysler New Yorker with a 331 hemi i had, then 12-13 mpg city and 15-16 mpg highway.
I’d always had a fascination with DeSoto since I was a little kid. In 1978, my Granddad bought a ’53 Firedome sedan from his brother-in-law. It had been his mother’s car, purchased new for about $3500. Base price was something like $2643, but by the time you added all the options, tax, everything, it was really easy to jack up the price on a car in those days. She had a stroke while driving it and hit a parked car, in the early 70’s. Car went into storage. Years later, when she passed away, my great-uncle wanted to settle the estate, and Granddad bought the car for something like $100-200. I went with him to a junkyard just south of Culpeper, VA, that had about 100 acres of EVERYTHING! He got a hood, fender, bumper, all the grille teeth, assorted trim, etc, for something like $80.
Granddad had bought this car, because by the late 70’s, he really hated the direction cars were taking, and he thought it would make for a good second car. Unfortunately, he never did much with it, after replacing all the wrecked parts. The car was light seafoam green, but the replacement parts were a really dark greenish-blue. Once I got my learner’s permit in 1986, I started showing an interest in it, but Granddad sold it! He said he didn’t want me driving around in something that old, and he didn’t want me bringing it back to him every time it broke down. I got even though…got my Mom’s 1980 Malibu as my first car, and I brought that to him every time it broke down!
Anyway, I joined the National DeSoto club back in the late 80’s. I remember from their roster issue, the 1956 seemed to have the best survival rate. There were over 200 of them listed in the club. I think the second most popular was either 1950 or 1953, which would make sense, as those were DeSoto’s two best years. I think they sold 130K in 1950 and 125K in 1953.
The 1956 was probably the best combination of factors for survival. Good looking car, popular when new, decent performance for the time, and well-built and reliable. While they were an update of the ’55 models, and the ’55’s sold better when new, the ’56 actually had a bit more market share, as it maintained sales pretty well in a year that was cooling off from ’55. Also, the ’55’s weren’t as powerful (291.1 Hemi with 185/200 hp vs the 330.4 with 230/255). Styling is subjective, but many historians have said that the ’56 Mopars in general were one of the few cars that actually improved with a facelift, so maybe collectors agree. Also, the 56 had a 12-volt electrical system, versus 6-volt, so I guess it would be a bit easier to find related parts for?
Also, DeSoto traditionally tended to sell a lot of conservative, “workaday” cars, so the flashier styles, like convertibles, hardtop coupes, and hardtop sedans, were comparatively rare when new. Normally, people will hang onto the hardtops and convertibles because they’re more valuable, and ditch the sedans. But, at least according to that roster issue of “DeSoto Adventures”, there were plenty of 4-doors listed.
FWIW, the 6-volt is what did in my Granddad’s old ’53 Firedome. The guy who bought it had it towed home. It would turn over, in Granddad’s yard, but wouldn’t fire up. Well, the guy got it home, tried to jump it with a 12-volt car, and fried something in the DeSoto. After that, he pushed it to the woods at the edge of his back yard, figuring he’d get to it later, I guess. Well, that was 1986. Last time I was down that way, late last year, I drove past the house, and the car was still there! It was rust-free when Granddad sold it. I hate to think what kind of condition it’s in now, 28 years later!