Survivor 1959 nomad wagon, with a 348 big block and factory air conditioning. Rust free 2 owner Colorado car. Original interior in VERY NICE condition.
Sometime ago I purchased a MAC tool box from a family member. This one:
It’s vintage 1980’s all steel MAC Tools tool box – it’s Godzilla heavy – about 5.5 feet tall. A month or so a go I was moving tools around in it and got to a section I hadn’t cleaned yet. So I emptied the contents of that section and found an interesting object and I tucked it away thinking I’d do something with it later on.
I re-found it today and hence this brief article. Oh…what is it? Here ya go.
It is a DeSoto Adventurer key blanks
I can’t tell what year it is from.
It folds up like a pocket knife and pictures the likeness of an Adventurer.
Not a bad looker! But they got even better later on!!!
Was I lying? Better looking 2 years later!!
So I thought…hmmm what don’t I know about this car…a lot.
I do know that the 1956 Adventurer is a rare car – only 996 of these were produced and cost about $4k back in the day. It was powered by the 320 horse powered 341 Hemi (considered their high performance model…well…yeah!!).
Here’s some stuff I didn’t know about DeSoto’s Adventurer model:
– They were first produced in 1956 and sported the Hemi 341 with dual exhaust.
– They were often referred to as the “Golden Adventurer” that year and had power brakes, power front seat, electric windows, windshield washer and dual exterior rear view mirrors and dual radio antennas (rear mounted).
– In 1956 they only came in a hard top.
– They were produced from 1956 to 1961 which was not only the
Adventurer’s last year but DeSoto’s as well.
OH…Hold the Presses!!! Didn’t I see one in person not too long ago? Yes, I did. It was a convertible!! Now I recall. I was at….Barrett Jackson Auction with……
….
and we saw this……
CAR!!!
…go for BIG MONEY $$$$.!!!
Here’s the rear end…
Please don’t ask me ‘why’ this is the only pic I took….!!!
In fact the a car above was a 1957 and there were only 300 convertibles made that year. Heck there were only 1650 hard top made that year as well.
In fact, again, they were all low production models:
– 350 hard tops and 82 convertibles in 1958
– 590 hard tops and 87 convertibles in 1959
– more cars in 1960 and 1961 – but they added a 4 door. What!!?!?!?!?!?! Boo!! Hiss!! Yup you could still get the 2 door version, yeah, in hard top only!!! (No convertibles…Double Boo!!! Triple Hiss!!!)
– All the Adventurers came with the most powerful engine DeSoto offered every year – always over 300 horse power, but just barely in 1960 and 1961 when it topped out at 305. (Another article coming up with some engine specifics for this cool model.)
Thanks for reading. If you know what year these key blanks are from drop me a note. If you own an Adventurer, drop me a pic @ timsweet@cox.net.
Danbury Mint 1956 DeSoto Adventurer Diecast Car 1:24 Scale Black/Gold w/Box http://t.co/v0RYpqnz2O
Unique and beautiful machines seen on the streets of New York. Monday, July 15, 2013. 1958 DeSoto Adventurer, First Street and Eighth Avenue. Posted by Cartorialist at 06:56. No comments: Post a Comment. Older Post Home. Subscribe to: …
Sometimes just wandering the junk yards either in person or virtually can spawn some ideas for a quick blog entry.
One of my favorite places to conduct my virtual tooling round is WWW.PartingOut.com They put a lot of hard work at delivering a very useful online tool for locating parts.
So while wandering around their site I found this 1973 Caddy. Now I grew up in the 60’s and ’70 (why does that seem like a long time ago?) and having spent some of those years either hanging out in or working in one my Dad’s body shops (he started and closed several in that time span) I was close to the car scene (not that I liked it much at the time). I remember the auto industry’s move into the long, thick cushioned Ford LTDs and Thunderbirds as well as the GM Buicks and Caddies.
With shows like Starky and Hutch and Mod Squad showing off some of the (criminal element or shady characters often drove them) plush mobiles, the excess they represented was easily noticed – I think Huggy Bear has a plush T-bird – he was often portrayed as a “business man” that organized a all women work force (any one get that?).
The 1973 Cadillac came with two engine. The most powerful was the standard V8 which displaced 500 cubic inches and had a bore and stroke of 4.30X4.06 inches. They had 5 main bearings, hydraulic lifters and 10.0:1 compression ratio. Top it off with the Rochester Quadrajet four barrel and you’d get about 375 hp.
Now the Eldorado came with the Eldorado V8 which had a smaller stroke 4.306 inches, reducing the compression ratio to 9.0:1 and produced only 365 hp.
You’d need every bit of that power, because these cars topped out at over 5,000 lbs
1973 was the year GM produced their five millionth Caddy (it was a DeVille, however, not an Eldorado).
Now days these cars are being restored and finding used parts keeps the cost down, most cars of the 70’s aren’t going to bring you big bucks when they are done. This 1973 Caddy has a lot of parts and looks to be a project car that’s either taken to long to finish or replaced by a ‘cooler’ project.
Still has the Engine
Grill and Headlight assemblies are all there!
Looking at the pics all the lenses seem to be there as well!!!
I love writing Engine Line Up pieces. I learn a lot doing the research.
Back in 1946 there wasn’t a lot of imagination when it came to naming cars. Packard either named their cars after the engines that powered them or their engines after their car models plus the cylinder count. This led to the following models names:
Clipper Six
Clipper Standard/Deluxe Eight
Clipper Eight
Custom Super Clipper Eight
The engines available for the Packard line up included one 6 cylinders and two 8 cylinders.
First up is the 6 cylinder dubbed – Clipper Six. This was an inline (straight) L-Head 6. (Note: An L-Head is a type of internal combustion engine having both inlet and exhaust valves on one side of the engine block – making the shape of an “L”.) The engine displaced 245.6 ID and had a bore and stroke of 3.5×4.25 and a compression ratio of 6.7:1. It had four main barrings and solid lifters. Top it off with a Carter WA1 single barrel carb (Model 530S) and you’d get 105 hp.
Clipper Six Engine – 1947 would be the last year this engine would be used in the Packard
Next up is the inline eight, referred to as the Clipper Standard/Deluxe Eight. It was an L-head as well that displaced 282.04 (yes .o4) cubic inches. It’s bore and stroke were 3.25X4.25 inches and the compression ratio was 6.85:1. It had five main bearings and solid lifters all topped with a 2 barrel Carter (WDO) Model 512S. On a good day you could coax 125 hp out of this configuration. Consider that the average weight of the Packard’s for that year 3,922 lbs with the heaviest being almost 5,000 lbs (4900), you’ll need all those horses to get these beautiful pieces of steel moving.
Last is the Super/Custom Super Clipper Eight. Again it was a straight (inline) eight cylinder and an L-head. This power plant was 356 cid with a bore/stroke of 3 1/2×4 5/8 inches, 9 main bearings and hydraulic lifters. Topped with a Carter’s (WDO) two barrel Model 531S it produced 165 horse power.
Posted Dec. 14, 2014 @ 6:08 pm. “Snow” created by the movie production crew, frosts the 1946 Packard police cruiser at Chatham Fish Pier. Staff photo by Doreen Leggett. By Doreen Leggett dleggett@wickedlocal.com. Posted Dec. 14, 2014 @ 6:08 pm.
Si quieres hacerte con un trocito de la historia automotriz de Estados Unidos y Detroit, dentro de poco se celebrará una subasta donde tendrás oportunidad de hacerlo. Las antiguas instalaciones de Packard saldrán a subasta por 21.000 dólares, …
For nearly 40 years, Dave’s Goldwest Auto Wrecking has been buying and selling wrecked muscle cars in Southern California. Sadly, after all these years, they are closing their doors and are selling off all their inventory and land. They have about 75 project muscle cars up for grabs that need to go. If you’re in the region, we would recommend stopping by, even if it’s just to roam the yard.
No this isn’t the finishing up the last trips notes, nope we just returned from there today 6/23.
We had stayed the weekend in Bisbee again with a couple friends and Lowell is 2 minutes away and so we wanted to show them the cool little town.
This time it was a bit earlier on a Sunday morning and the breakfast cafe was crowded and one other thing was different the Harley Repair shop was open.
We got to meet the owner Jim (real first named – last name omitted). As I alluded to in my earlier posts, Jim is a avid supporter of one of the largest motorcycle social events in the world – Sturgis, South Dakota. On this particular Sunday Jim had his shop open and was working on the brakes of his old Chevy pick up.
One of Jim’s many vehicles. He mentioned that we owns nearly all of the motor cycles and cars you see there.
Most of the cars and vehicles belong to Jim. He has a pretty large collection of cars – like a 1969 Mustang Shelby, Studebaker pickup, Hudson, 67 Corvette to name a few (Oh and this Caddy!!).
He has collected all of the Indian and Harley motorcycles you can see on display and parked along the street and I’d say they out number the cars at lest three to one.
This Indian racer has been well restored.
I didn’t get him on camera, hadn’t expected to run into to him on a Sunday morning and didn’t want to impose. As I stated, Jim was setting up to do a brake job on the Chevy pickup pictured above. As we approached we were greeted by two dogs, one named Blondie, the other dogs name I didn’t catch but both were older but cutie dogs. Jim was hauling out a Honda scooter with a for sale sign on it when we walked up followed by the two dogs. Next to the Chevy pick up was a 2004 Harley which he had just picked up from a when a family friend who’s patriarch had recently passed and the family offered the bike at a far price. The dogs belonged the same fellow and Jim adopted them (he had just lost his 12 year old dog).
Jim admits he has collected a lot of interesting pieces and let us know he has a Chrysler with an original Hemi coming in and a flat head Ford V8 engine, but needs a Ford to put it in, and a few more goodies. He laughed saying that he’s running out of friends with space to store thing. Being a fellow car lover, I offered to bring some things back to Tucson with me to help out….we both laughed….pretty sure that’s not going to happen.
Although Lowell is a legitimate Arizona city it has pretty much been left on it’s own. It has been slated to be torn down -(more on that later on). Jim explained that “they” pretty much let him and a couple others carry on business and Jim use most of the building for storing and displaying his treasures.
There is an effort to save the town of Lowell, AZ and make it a historic area. Look for more from me on that.
Let’s talk about the staging. Most of these are original, but staged (well staged) with some period correct signs, gas pumps and vehicles. Let’s check out.
