This post presents DeSoto grilles beginning 1940, when Chrysler Corporation brands were given a new body design that sloughed off 1930s awkwardness, positioning styling one notch away from the end of 1930-1949 evolution from discrete elements to smooth, "envelope" body designs.
Unless noted, images are via factory or of cars for sale.
Here we have a split grille featuring horizontal bars.
The next year saw the first vertical-bar design. Front fenders were flattened (shallow catwalks filled in), creating a more solid frontal appearance.
Probably the most distinctive DeSoto frontal design. Unmistakable, actually. The strong, horizontal line running across the top of the grille and extending over the fenders made a strong visual statement that was enhanced by the hidden headlights. Too bad all this was dropped after the war.
Postwar DeSotos got front fenders that flowed over the front doors. Exposed headlights returned, and the grille format (not the opening) was widened, resulting in an even more toothy look.
Chrysler Corporation cars got new, boxy bodies for 1949. DeSoto's vertical bars now varied in width.
But the next year bars had identical widths in line with the current American fashion for heavy chrome grille elements.
Chrysler Corporation cars got rounded-off hood fronts for 1951. DeSotos had fewer vertical bars. The grille design was unchanged for 1952.
Chrysler brands were rebodied for 1953. DeSoto's grille bars were similar to those of the previous two years, but more were added,
The '54 facelift featured "floating" vertical bars.
That bar theme was reprised in 1955 when another body redesign was launched. I very much like 1955 DeSoto styling. These and the 1942 models were the best of the breed.
1956 DeSotos were facelifted, the most obvious change being tail fins on the rear fenders. Vertical grille bars were replaced by a nondescript mesh, thereby ending the brand's established identification feature. My father bought a four-door hardtop Firedome like this, but with the color scheme reversed.
Yet another redesigned body, a flashy one that sold about as well as the '55s. But the grille theme is not interesting or distinctive. That mesh did not help, though perhaps stylists and marketers were thinking the mesh could now serve as DeSoto's visual identification.
The grille bars are less bland for the 1958 facelift, though the mesh continues.
Finally the mesh is gone and the theme is a variation on the flat, slits-defined-by-bold chrome found beginning in 1957.
Then even that theme was abandoned in 1960. Retained was the delicate, rectangular grid of thin bars that now cover a grossly large area compared to '59.
The final DeSoto design retained the rectangular thin bar theme with details changed. The flattened oval shape at the front of the hood is strange, very strange, marking the finale of the brand's post-1957 death spiral.
Little wonder that Danes began to dub American automobiles "Dollargrin" (Dollar smile or Dollar grin) around 1950, although I think it actually began specifically as a nick name for the more common (than De Soto) 1946 and on Buick Roadmaster. But those late 'forties-'early fifties DeSotos certainly do sport gleaming, toothy grins! :-)
ReplyDeleteI think that 1942 De Soto was clean and neat, but must've been quite shocking at the time, although hidden headlamps weren't in themselves new.
The 1961 DeSoto was pretty obviously cooked up to look different while using as many Chrysler body parts as possible. Like with the 1960 Edsel, they had obviously given up. I don't know why they bothered with either one. I guess marketing decided to just make something cheap that not many people would buy and just slip away semi-gracefully.
ReplyDeleteThe '55 is nice, but I think of the 1957 as peak DeSoto. The way the bumper shape appears to continue above the horizontal flat oval exhaust outlets and is pierced by three round tail lights is cooler than the Chrysler it shares sheet metal with. The Chrysler has red tail lights and no bumper exhaust outlets.(no photos here - look it up)
The 1957 front end photo is of an Adventurer, DeSoto's 300 equivalent, so all the gold instead of stainless/chrome found on normal ones.