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A coworker had a '72 Duster in around '81. Being weaned on GM's, I thought it was sort-of funny that the glove comparment door, instead of button with lock, had a handle you pulled on, and the fresh-air vents looked like little 'easy bake' ovens, with doors you opened, instead of pulling on a round knob. I remember this though, that Duster had a huge trunk compared to what I remember our '73 Nova having.
By the late '70s someone with a thin wallet who lusted for a Cadillac Seville could buy a fancy Nova.
Out of gas?
I know that they finally got around to giving the Dart and Valiant a glove box lock, but did they ever make the air vents more elegant?
I know that in '75/'76 I saw a lot of Dart SE and Valiant Brougham models around here - they seemed to sell quite well. I suspect they would have been a better choice than our family's Maverick LDO.
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This darling redheaded cheerleader from my class, was the granddaughter of the Ford dealer in town. In high school she drove an ice blue Maverick LDO V8. Nice for a Maverick, but the Maverick, for me, was by far the lamest compact at the time...well, maybe not counting the Hornet, but....
At the risk of alienating some here, I'll respectfully disagree about 'South Bend' in the one description above! LOL I always liked the optional 'Broadcloth' interior in the 1963 Studebaker Cruiser (top line Lark):
Second post down:
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?17896-63-Interior-color-qu- estion
As for the a/c vents, they were always just stuck under the dash, with the three narrow vents in a row. For 1968, it seems like they went crazy with dash padding. My '68 had padding around the a/c ducts, and also thin padded shelf that ran across the whole bottom of the dashboard.
For '69, they took that extra padding off, and at some point after that, the a/c ducts were made out of black plastic rather than chrome metal, but they were always mounted under the dash.
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Both cars had 6-cylinder engines (Ford's 250 and AMC's 258) and automatic transmissions. Both had power steering. The Maverick had non-power drum brakes all around while the Hornet had power front discs. Each had radial tires.
The only respect in which the Maverick was superior was in seat comfort, and that is only due to the LDO option with its Euro Capri-like seats. The Hornet had the standard knit vinyl upholstery on a bench seat and it was what you might expect for the times.
Driving dynamics were far better in the Hornet. I actually liked driving it. The steering had a semblance of road feel, and the car felt like it could handle far better than the Ford. The 258, while not a powerhouse, felt more stout than Ford's 250. The Maverick felt squirrelly on the highway above 50mph, while the Hornet was pretty stable. And although the AMC interior was pretty lousy in design, the car was built far better than the Ford, which was really a sloppily-made car with all sorts of rattles, wind and water leaks, and which rusted with a vengeance.
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Hey, I'd have said I loved Maverick LDO's if it would have got me in the car with the red-headed cheerleader back then!
I don't remember too much, but do remember that it didn't totally suck. Not nearly as roomy and comfy as a Dart/Valiant or my Gran Fury (which dated back to the '76 Aspen/Volare so, in a roundabout way, was still a peer), but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
My biggest beef with many Ford products of that era, and the 80's, is that the driveshaft/transmission hump seems overly large, and severely compromises the center position, both front and rear.
And yeah, IIRC, Consumer Reports tended to rate the Maverick pretty high for reliability. In fact, I think it often placed higher than the Dart/Valiant.
At some point Ford got rid of the under-dash shelf and added a glove box - our '74 had one. I think it was the early Gremlins that had no glove box door or even a back seat.
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Gremlins and Hornets, at least early-on, had an open shelf under the dash also.
That might be why I'm getting confused. I remember the open shelf on the AMC cars, so that might be why I was thinking some of them lacked a glovebox.
I remember when AMC updated the Hornet in '78 to become the Concord, the entire dash was redesigned and became much more conventional-looking for the times.
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back seat, they all had that!
and I have no recollection of odd air vents or footwell vent boxes in the Duster. It did have a sunroof though.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?68177-quot-Cool-quot-100-d- ay-1957-DeSoto-restoration
It's been a good 20 years or more, but I knew someone whose family had a 1957 DeSoto Firedome that was sort of a coral/salmon/pinkish color, but it wasn't as pink as the '57 Firesweep in that url. And interestingly, the '57 DeSoto paint chart shows no salmon color offered at all, so I guess this particular one had been a re-paint?
Now, the Chrysler paint chart has a color called "Shell Pink", which looks like a pale peach to me, and "Sunset Rose", which looks fairly pink, but again, not as jarring as the pink on that '57 Firesweep.
I have a feeling they just picked some custom pink paint for that car, and went their own route.
This is a pic from the local MBCA show a couple years ago. The white W111 coupe, a pristinely restored 1962 with the rare 4-speed, is in a non-original color. It was kind of a pearl white, which was not used by MB then. It works, maybe so long as it isn't in a judged show, and it suits the car. My car is correct, a type of color that maybe didn't exist much past the 60s.
Obscure cars this morning: immaculate ~90 Cavalier Z24 convertible, same nice condition ~85 Ciera woody I see now and then, C43 AMG.
I would prefer a car I own to not just be a correct color for the model, but the original color of the car.
I have a couple pretty close, color pics of that car the original owner gave me from late summer '64, at Yellowstone Park. I wish I had a way to post them, but I don't.
Do you have a scanner to digitize them? Or a digital camera to take a closeup picture of the old photo and then send that digital image to the host site for your pictures?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I'd like to see those pics too, you should scan them or even take pics of them with a good camera. I wish I had similar history of my car - I have paperwork going back to the factory, and a mountain of receipts older than I am, but no photos from before I owned it.
might not be original, but I like the new color a lot better on that car.
must be a beast to drive with a stick and no power assist. Actually, I had a Duster just like that. And a Volvo. Both of which were considerably smaller than a Desoto!
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First, Andre, what model is your DeSoto? I know they usually started with "Fire..." those late'50's years--is yours one with the Dodge front clip or the Chrysler-look front clip?
Secondly--have you guys ever found anything 'old' inside of your car, a 'souvenir' so to speak? I found a 1967 University of Minnesota parking pass under the carpet of my '63 Lark when I was stripping it down to go to the restorer's, so to speak. It was sold new to a family in Moorhead, MN. A friend with a '63 big Studebaker truck, who worked for a Stude dealer in Akron, OH in his youth, used to say, "We used to sell Roy Hosee big trucks like this, I wonder if this is his". He was tearing into it once and found a pencil with "Roy Hosee Trucking" down the defroster vent! Similarly, I read online (don't know the guy) that he found a Goldwater button down the defroster vent of his Avanti.
Then came the Centurion(replaced the Wildcat) for 71-73.
The mom of a long time friend of mine had a 73 that was bought new when we were kids...fully loaded 455 car. Very cool.
My father had a 71 Mercury Capri that had an under dash shelf.
You didnt want to put too much into it as the radio speaker was located at the top of the storage space and pointed down. Made it hard to hear the radio otherwise, lol.
It was a cool, but very quirky car.
Im in that same camp. My restoration pet peeve is seeing a car thats basically been fully restored to factory delivered condition...only to see the dash has been cut to fit an aftermarket stereo...sigh.
Another HUGE pet peeve, for which I'm made fun of, but I stand my ground:
It isn't rocket science to figure out where the factory placed various nameplates and emblems on a car. Take a damn picture before you repaint the car!
I CANNOT STAND seeing cars that are otherwise painted beautifully, with an eye towards originality elsewhere, and a nameplate is in the wrong place, or even in the right general area but six inches or even a foot off!! Aaarrrrgggggh! That can't be easily fixed!!!!!!! Not doing this correctly is simply being lazy.
Off my soapbox now.
My '69 Dart GT, which was my daily driver at the time, is in the foreground, and in the back is my Granddad's '85 Silverado, which I still have, and my uncle's '76 Jeep pickup, which I think is still around, somewhere down in Appalachia. Whether it still runs is a different story, though.
The Firedome was the cheapest "Senior" Mopar, built on the 126" wheelbase shared with Chrysler. Base price was $2958 for the 4-door sedan, whereas the Dodge-based Firesweep sedan was $2777. Base price for my hardtop coupe was something like $3083 I think. However, even on a car like that ps, pb, auto trans, radio, and heater were all optional. I spec'ed it out in one of those American Standard catalogs once, and as equipped, it was probably around $3800 new.
Personally, I never liked the '57 Firesweep. It was on a 122" wheelbase, same as the Dodges (and Plymouth wagons). However, overall length was only two inches shorter, 216" versus 218". That's because the DeSoto grille didn't mate very well to the Dodge front clip, so it jutted out more.
If DeSoto wanted a lower-priced car, I wonder if they would have been better off just taking the big 126" body, throw a Dodge 325 poly in it instead of the DeSoto 341 Hemi, and be done with it? But, at that time they were experimenting with taking DeSoto downscale, so that Chrysler could move down a bit as well, and leave more room for Imperial to stand on its own more. And, for 1958, the Chrysler Windsor would also move down to the short 122" wheelbase.
Oddly, for 1958, I thought the Chrysler grille, as well as the DeSoto grille, mated to the Dodge front clip much better than the '57 DeSoto grille did. Another thing that might have improved its looks though, is the standard quad headlights, which the '57 Firesweep lacked. Even in states where quads were legal, '57 Firesweeps only had two.
For 1959, they actually went through the effort to make the Firesweep look like a DeSoto up front, as it used a shortened version of the DeSoto front clip, instead of the Dodge clip. That probably cost them more money to do, but maybe they had some economy of scale, because the fenders and hood were shared with the Chrysler Windsor?
Fireflites and Adventurers especially have seen better survival rates. The Fireflite because it's a more luxurious car, I'm guessing, and the Adventurer because it was an expensive, top of the line performance car, and much more valuable.
Lately I've been seeing a black 1957 Fireflite 4-door sedan showing up at the Mopar show in Carlisle. I saw it a second time this past year as well, I think in Macungie PA, but it could have been Hershey.
For some reason the '59 DeSoto has had a better survival rate than the '57-58, but it's been awhile now, since I've seen one of those. I've heard that the '59 Mopars were much better built than '57-58, so maybe that's one reason why?
Nowadays, it seems like the most common of the later DeSotos I see is the 1960. There's always a few of those that show up at the Carlisle Mopar show. Going back a few years though, it seems like the 1956 DeSoto is relatively common.
Oh, and here's a pic from the last time my DeSoto was out on a public road :sick:
Odd cars this morning - same Cavalier I saw yesterday, W124 E500, very nice 65-66 Mustang fastback (too far away for me to see many details), powder blue, sequential signals.
I don't recall that the sequential signals were on the 65-66 Mustang. Nor the 67. I'm not sure which, if any year, had them as an option in those early years. The Cougar did have sequential signals and it seems like it 67 or 68 when they introduced them.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My '68 and '69 Dodge Darts were like that...just one bulb in there, that had two filaments. One filament lit up when you turned on the lights, and another filament lit up when you hit the brake pedal...this one would also flash when you put the turn signal on.
You are right again. I had forgotten about the T-Birds.
However...I tried looking on Wiki for info about sequential kits for 69 or up Mustangs. My memory thinks there may have a kit for them.
I found this kit for a 67. So your car might have had aftermarket sequential signals.
Watch the youtube. Notice anything funny about the sequential signals?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ0qq0mJueQ
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
1958 Ponton
For the money, I think it should be a lot nicer.
I'd prefer to save $3K and buy this:
1965 Chrysler 300
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