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There's a car on ebay right now with 3 antennas. One on the front fender, and dual rears.
Having the dual rears should have deleted the fender antenna, no?
It's supposed to be fun!
1949 De Soto Custom Convertible (project)
Tim
The 1956 model DeSoto was the first model year that dual rear fender mounted antennae were offered as a factory option. A DeSoto ordered with a radio would have either a standard (manual) antenna on the left front fender, a power antenna on the LF fender, or dual manual antennae on the rear fenders. Someone must have added an antenna to the one on ebay or maybe it was built on a Monday.
The 56 DeSoto brochure shows the depiction of only one car with an antenna and it has dual antennae with them facing forward. In David Dapman's post there are two 56 DeSotos shown with the Dual antennae mounted in this manner. I notice the 56 Adventurer you are restoring has dual antennae facing rearward which I would think would be correct. Were these factory installed? Does the data plate show which optional antenna the car may have been built with? If so, the dual antennae option would show an order code 7.
I wonder if maybe some of these forward facing antennae were dealer installations using the brochure as a guide?
Mac
Thanks, Mac. I had a nice conversation with Dave Tyjeski earlier today and we talked about antennas a little bit.
The Adventurer we are restoring did come to us with dual rears, facing rearward, which I assume would have been standard on the Adventurer. I have the Data Plate here next to me, and it has a "7" stamped under the code "DM" in the lower right corner.
I have been assuming, pursuing, (and finally have) a set of the triple horns for this car to be original. It oddly came to us without any horns in it. Is there a code on the Data Tag that would have indicated the Triad (is that what they're called???) horns. Were they standard equipment for the Adventurer? Were they the same across all the Mopar models?
Now I've hijacked my own thread.
It's supposed to be fun!
1949 De Soto Custom Convertible (project)
Tim,
My dealer order information does not list the Adventurer models; however, I would think the order codes would be the same. If the Adventurer had a standard feature, this feature may not be coded on the body tag whereas it would be on a model where it was an option.
There were three options which used the code 7. These were:
-9 tube radio with search finder and Highway Hi-Fi
-Rear seat speaker
-Triad Horn
The standard horn would be a dual horn I believe. The 56 Plymouth did not have a Triad horn option. The body tag on my 55 Coronado also has the DM in the lower right corner but has no code number under it. There was no horn option for the 55 DeSotos. I have not been able to determine what the DM option was. Most of the abbreviations on the tag are self evident such as : TR=transmission, HR=heater, etc. My guess is the 7 under the DM on your tag would be for the radio. I would like to nail down what the DM and the KI on my tag stands for. There are no code numbers associated with these on my tag.
Confused yet?
Mac
