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I stopped at my local NAPA store and asked for one of their 2016 car calendars. You would have thought I was robbing the store as they reluctantly agreed to provide one to me. Imagine my delight when I saw the cover with not one, but two, '55 DeSotos on the cover! The theme of this year's calendar is "art in motion" and the '55 DeSoto is the car for January 2016. There are a lot of high dollar European sport and classic cars in the calendar so we are in good company.
The photo cars are owned by two New York NDC members: Duane Dodds owns the Firedome coupe and William Sprout owns the Firedome sedan. Congrats to those members for having their cars featured in the calendar.
Both cars are indeed Firedomes and are listed as such in the NDC roster issue, but sharp-eyed '55 experts will notice that both these cars have the front fender chrome peak moldings that connect to the chrome headlight bezel. I feel somewhat vindicated as my '55 Firedome sedan also has these moldings (see photo) that were supposedly only for the Fireflite series. DeSoto historian Bob Terpak and I have debated how this might have happened for many years now. Besides my car and the two calendar cars, I've seen several others so equipped on eBay or Craigslist - so many that it appears not to have been an isolated incident.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my fellow NDC members!
Mark
I think buyers asked the dealership to install them after their Firedome arrived at the dealership. Or maybe the dealers 'dressed up' the car to try to get more sales.
Ron
