1957 DeSoto Adventurer - More Iconic Than a '57 Chevy?

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A transcript, cleaned up by AI and edited by a human staffer, is below.

[Image: YouTube Screenshot]

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Transcript:

We’re on an expedition in search of gold. The fact that this 1957 DeSoto Adventurer is named after a Spanish conquistador—and only came in black, white, and gold—feels fitting. Its history of ambition, glory, and downfall mirrors that of Hernando de Soto himself. He spent the early 1500s exploring the New World. After conquering Peru, he traveled to North America in search of gold and became the first European to cross the Mississippi River.

Four centuries later, in 1928, Chrysler used his name to launch a new division positioned between Plymouth and Dodge. Dodge and DeSoto eventually swapped price positions, but after World War II, every Chrysler division was losing sales to Ford and General Motors. Chrysler hired Virgil Exner, a driven, chain-smoking designer recently pushed out of Studebaker. He began with experimental cars like the futuristic Adventurer I and Adventurer II concepts. Eventually, management trusted him with the full 1955 redesign, which needed to succeed. Every division received his new “Forward Look” styling. The project supposedly cost $100 million, but the public embraced it and sales rose quickly.

The DeSoto Adventurer debuted in 1956 as a limited-production subseries based on the top-level Fireflite. It combined Exner’s styling with a 320-horsepower V8. It was bold, powerful, and glamorous. Not even an untimely heart attack slowed down Chrysler’s star designer. For 1957, the new cars would ride lower, look faster, and wear larger fins than anything else on the road.

Designer Vince Geraci had just started at DeSoto when he saw the clay models. He remembers being stunned—going from the 1956 to the 1957 models felt like an enormous leap.

The 1957 Adventurer was, and still is, gorgeous. The fins start at the doors and rise aggressively toward the rear, meeting triple-stacked taillights and dual radio antennas. Originally, the exhaust exited through the bumper, but this car’s owner rerouted it to protect the chrome. The hardtop roofline gives the car a low, dynamic look. Quad headlamps had just become legal in all 50 states when the Adventurer arrived, making earlier cars look outdated immediately. The front end is stylish but modest; Exner seemed to know the real attention-getter was the rear.

In an era of vibrant pinks, blues, and greens, this gold and white combination stands out. Even more striking are the gold-anodized wheel covers, which were exclusive to the Adventurer. Geraci designed the fender crest, while other trim includes the Forward Look emblem and a 1950s rendition of the DeSoto coat of arms.

The sleek roofline came with compromises—reduced headroom and thinner seat cushions. Otherwise, the interior follows mid-50s conventions: chrome bezels, bold fabrics, and jet-age curves.

Under the hood is a 345-cubic-inch Hemi V8 producing exactly 345 horsepower, making it one of the few engines of the era to achieve one horsepower per cubic inch. It uses dual four-barrel carburetors, similar to the Chrysler 300 series, though those cars had larger engines. With less weight than the 300, the Adventurer performs well. Select “Drive” on the three-speed TorqueFlite, and the thermometer-style speedometer climbs quickly.

The 345 Hemi is a blast. There’s no sound insulation and no emissions equipment—when you get on the throttle, the sound pouring through the firewall is intense. It’s surprising power from an unmodified 1950s engine. But with boosted steering, drum brakes, and bias-ply tires, anything beyond a straight line demands restraint.

The curved windshield and swept-back A-pillars provide a clear view of the road, especially compared to today’s more enclosed cabins. Exner claimed that tailfins improved directional stability at highway speeds, though that may have been marketing. What did help was the Torsion-Aire suspension—Chrysler’s torsion-bar front setup improved handling and helped lower the car’s stance. Despite its long exterior, the Adventurer doesn’t feel huge from behind the wheel. You sit low, and the hood doesn’t stretch far ahead, making it feel smaller than expected.

Exner’s vision of low-slung cars with massive fins had come to life, and he was celebrated for it. Chrysler had finally out-shined GM and Ford. But problems followed. In 1957, Chrysler changed every model across all divisions—sedans, hardtops, convertibles, wagons—everything from Plymouth to Imperial. Launching so many new cars at once caused quality issues. Early cars leaked and rattled, and torsion bars sometimes snapped while parked. The cars looked great, but Chrysler struggled to sort out the flaws.

A national recession in 1958 hurt sales even more. Chrysler products increasingly overlapped in price and equipment, leaving DeSoto squeezed between Dodge and Chrysler. Its lineup was gradually reduced until Chrysler finally discontinued the brand in November 1960.

As for Exner, tailfins quickly fell out of fashion as buyers turned to compact cars like Ramblers and Volkswagens. After years of overwork, he retired for health reasons in 1961.

Hernando de Soto’s final expedition ended poorly—marked by violence against Native Americans and a failure to find gold. But the DeSoto brand’s legacy, especially the Adventurer, deserves better than it gets. When people think “1957,” they think of the Chevy Bel Air. Decades of repetition made the ’57 Chevy the poster child of jet-age styling. The Bel Air is beautiful, but it shouldn’t stand alone. You can’t talk about 1950s design without acknowledging Exner’s work.

Like de Soto himself, driving this car makes you feel as if you could conquer anything. The style, the power—it's a remarkable experience. And with apologies to Chevy fans, if I were buying a 1957 car, it would be this. You don’t have to explore new worlds to find gold. Sometimes all you need is the Forward Look.