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| My 1957 Adventurer is what I believe would be called a survivor. From what I can see it is largely untouched apart from a couple of halfhearted cheap resprays probably two or three decades ago. Certainly it does not appear to have been taken apart before and is mostly as it left the factory, apart from the paint.
The previous owner was Rory Nelson who, I understand, was at one time a technical adviser to the National DeSoto Club and I believe my car was part of a small collection he built up. From what I can see my car probably stood for many years during his ownership but must have been reasonably well stored as there is no rust and overall it is in remarkably good condition. The current mileage is just over 40,000 and obviously I have no way of knowing if that could be original or not, other than to say that much of the car is in such good original condition that this could actually be its original mileage.
Does anyone out there know anything more about Rory's car? I've tired to make contact with his family (I understand he has sadly now passed away) but have had no luck. It would be so nice to have something of Rory (even just a photo), and the car's history before his ownership, to go forward with this car.
I will be carrying out a very sympathetic "refreshment" of this lovely old car and trying to keep everything as original as possible and to catalog every single part of the work.
Sadly, at least one of the cheap repaints has now suffered from micro-blistering so a repaint is desperately needed, and it will need to stripped right back to bare metal to ensure there are no further problems. I have so far carefully stripped the car having photographed and cataloged every single piece, right down to the placement of every single clip and screw that has been removed. So far, remarkably, every single component has come off in amazing condition and in total there has been only one screw (from a clip holding one of the trunk stainless trims) and one clip, which have not survived is reusable condition. This is a testament not only to the quality of the design and engineering but also to the remarkable condition of the car.
I will try to regularly update the forum with progress, but feel that to do the story justice, I may need to post too much for it to be easily readable on a forum, so my current plan is to set up a link to perhaps a "drop box" account where I'll provide regular updates and photos.
I'd really appreciate any information on Rory Nelson, and in particular this car.
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Expert
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Location: Montreal, Canada | Thanks for sharing, and I look forward to seeing your progress pics on what seems to be an amazing car! |
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Expert
Posts: 1728
Location: Fleetwood, Pa | I think all our "old cars" are survivors, or there would be nothing to own and drive around???? |
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Posts: 3155
Location: NY & VT | Ed Petrus 57desoto would be the man to ask, if anyone knows this car or Rory Nelson it would be him. |
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Location: Bjorneborg, Finland | I corresponded with Rory Nelson over quarter of century ago when he was a 1957 technical advisor to the NDC. I was looking to buy a '57 Fireflite then. He sent me few
photos of his DeSotos, a '57 Fireflite sedan, a '57 Fireflite Sportsman 2-dr Ht and a '57 Adventurer. He had just found then another '57 Fireflite 2-dr from a barn, a rusty
project car.
I don't remember what he wrote about his Adventurer, if told much at all. Sad to hear he has passed away.. Here are couple of pics of Rory's Adventurer. He received
the 2nd place prize from a car show in Minnesota for his Adventurer.
Edited by spinout 2016-04-29 4:45 PM
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 RN-1-2.jpg (104KB - 141 downloads)
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Expert
Posts: 1488
Location: New Castle PA | I believe that IS the Adventurer we're talking about. Mark is giving her a going-over now. I only knew who Rory WAS. Never met him, and wish I could help more. Mark, do you have the family's snail-mail address? |
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Regular
Posts: 89
| Hi to both Spinout and to Ed, and thanks so much to Spinout for the photos of Rory's car including finally a picture of Rory and it's previous licence number - wonderful - thank you!! Sorry for the late reply - combination of work pressures and working on the Adventurer have kept me offline but hopefully I'll get some updates started soon. It's looking very good so far, very, very original and almost no rust. I think Rory must have known a great car when he saw one and it's survived very well!!
Ed, I do have an address for Rory's widow and I did write to her last year but no reply. I certainly don't want to hassle her - it must be terrible to lose someone and I guess cars and Desoto's in particular might be a sad reminder for her. Still it's lovely that we're still talking about Rory and I will do my very best to keep the car in a condition he would have been proud of. |
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1957 DeSoto Adventurer Survivor Refreshment
