Another interesting old Mopar with an early hemi was a ’52 DeSoto coupe my brother bought used in about 1957 or there abouts. Sometimes I get his old cars from the 50’s mixed up date-wise but I generally remember the when for what better than he does.
Anyway it was the ubiquitous green with a w/s sunshade (that he immediately trashed) and looked all the world like your grandpa’s DeSoto. Lurking beneath the hood was an ex-Keikhaefer 300B motor. Backed by a PowerFlite transmission, that car, even with the spun aluminum full Moon wheelcovers and big rear tires, that DeSoto was the sleeper of Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley in its day.
Can’t say how difficult it was to stuff that hemi in the straight six engine bay as he purchased the car like that.
I do know it was a bit of a challenge for him to stuff a 1957 345 DeSoto hemi in his ’49 Mercury. Took some help by a guy who was a machinist for Kimberly-Clark to come up with an engine to stock Mercury 3 speed trans adapter and engine mounts but like I said about a determined hot rodder…..
Boy I wish I had his old cars from the 50’s. Even his one new car from the 50’s was really neat; a ’58 Fury with the Golden Commando engine. I know this all sounds like pipe dreams but I still wasn’t old enough to have a drivers license in fall of 1958. At that time dad, who was a Dodge factory rep. had a ’58 Custom Royal 4 dr. hdt. with the single 4 bbl. D500 engine and a ’58 Dodge Regal Lancer with the dual quad D500 mill. Those Dodge’s and my brothers Fury were sitting in our driveway for a time and I was only 15. That my friends was more of a nightmare than a dream.
John Hagen
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