DeSotoFiredome

01

Origins

The 1952 Firedome gave DeSoto what the marque had lacked since the Airflow disaster: excitement. Under the bonnet sat a 276-cubic-inch version of Chrysler's hemispherical-head V8 — the family that would become simply 'the Hemi' — making the Firedome the performance DeSoto and dragging the brand's image out of the sensible middle of the market. Buyers responded; the Firedome quickly became the best-selling DeSoto line and held the position through the mid-1950s. In 1955 Virgil Exner's Forward Look styling transformed it again, long and low with two-tone flanks. The Firedome's run to 1959 tracks DeSoto's brief Indian summer almost exactly: the marque's strongest years were the ones when this car led the range, before corporate politics and a recession closed the brand down in 1961.