Dan and Lois Dolan's 1942 DeSoto Coupe

Here is a rear quarter shot of Dan and Lois' 42:

Now here are some shots that only geeky people will love. I deliberately took this shot looking into the interior low to show two things; first the starter pedal located high and to the right of the accelerator. You will see the other end of that in another under hood shot. This photo also shows the knob on the left side of the steering column that engages the transmission into high range so that the car can be push started. This car has the vacuum shifted "Simplimatic" transmission and so unlike it's hydraulic shifted successors won't automatically upshift when push started.

I had to have Dan show me exactly how the headlamp doors worked. In this shot of the left under hood, you will see the rod coming through the dash that operates them. Inside the car, that rod is attached to the plastic pistol grip just to the right of the steering column. You can see the bottom of it in the previous photo. This shot also shows the starter pedal interface with the starter pinion shifter and the solenoid.

Here is an under hood photo of the cross-bar that connects the headlamp doors. You can see the rod connecting to it. Of the 4 or 5 42 cars I have seen, this is the only one where those doors actually fit properly in the openings when they are closed.

Here is an under hood shot from the right side. After studying the shop manual for the Simplimatic transmission I was curious as to whether Dan and Lois car had the vacuum diaphragm version or the vacuum piston version. The shots of the solenoid control say that it has the vacuum piston version.

I love that Dan and Lois have kept the Simplimatic in this car, and kept it working well. What a great car!

where are the photos?

Jon,

Sadly the photos did not survive the data corruption that the website suffered when GoDaddy spanked us for having our website exceed the limit of our "shared hosting" package.