My Mom's first car was a 1957 Plymouth, which she bought in 1965. She paid
a whopping 50 bucks for it. At the time she said she hated it because it
was too big. She doesn't remember much about it, except that it was gray,
and at some point while she had it, someone slammed a door too hard and it
shattered a window. She doesn't remember the engine, body style, or trim
level though.
Oddly, within a year she bought a brand-new '66 Pontiac Catalina
convertible, a car that's actually considerably bigger than a '57 Plymouth.
Still, maybe it didn't "feel" as big. I think sometimes, the things that
are the trendiest at one moment in time, become the very things that we
deride a few years later, once a new style comes along. A '57 Plymouth, in
my opinion, is light-years ahead, style-wise, from a '57 Chevy or Ford.
However, a '57 Chevy, which was actually pretty outdated looking when it was
new (after all, it was a 3rd year facelift going against an all new Ford and
Plymouth), may have seemed to wear better in the eyes of the public. I'd
imagine that something like a '57 Plymouth, with those soaring tailfins,
might have been seen as an embarrassment by the mid 60's, especially to a
teen driver. Also, being a "big" car, it might have been viewed as
something your parents drove, whereas a '57 Chevy is more midsized, by 60's
standards.
When I was in college in the late 80's, I worked at a Denny's restaurant.
The store manager was telling me about some of the cars he had when he was a
teen. The first was a 1957 DeSoto Fireflite 4-door hardtop that he paid
$500 for, in 1965. He said it handled great and was a strong enough
performer that it would embarrass many "cool" cars in a drag race. But it
just had that loser image, partly from being a big 4-door and partly from
being an orphan. So he sold it and got a '57 Chevy convertible, also $500.
The DeSoto would blow its doors off, but the Chevy was just a "cooler" car.
Just out of curiosity, how have big Fords from the '55-62 era held up over
the years? It seems like just about every '55-57 Chevy known to man
survived, and the '58, '59 and later models had a good survival rate, but
I've noticed that Fords seem as rare as Plymouths. Especially the '57.
I've heard the '57 Ford described as all the quality of a Plymouth, but none
of the style. And while Plymouths were horrible rusters, I've heard that
Fords were all that and more. In addition to the rust, you had a
flexi-flyer body. Supposedly if the road was rough enough, the doors could
pop open on hardtop models. They stamped creases in the roof for '58, and
did other band-aid fixes to make it sturdier. Plus, I've heard the engines
and transmissions on the Fords weren't as sturdy as the Plymouth.
Andy Garland
1957 DeSoto Firedome hardtop coupe
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