A day at the junkyard [John]

Phil went home to do some Saturday work for our employer, and I set off for Otay Mesa, near Brown Field, site of numerous auto recyclers. I confirmed what parts stores in East County had already told me: it's either hard or impossible to find parts cars from the '50s around here. I was able to rack up almost 15,000 FitBit steps, which is a good thing, but I didn't find much in the way of parts for the DeSoto. I did get a couple of license plate brackets -- one from a late '70s Chevy and one from a Ford Fairmont, probably a '79.

I scrounged for suitable mirrors. In the '60s, I now recall, many manufacturers made their side mirrors with a pointed-but-rounded front surface, sort of like the original iMac. My '69 Mach 1 had mirrors like that, painted body color. Not suitable for a '53 car I decided. I found a Ford Ranger, about an '89, like the STX I once had, that had a simple, black, door mirror that I thought would be fine.

Candidate mirror on an 89 Ranger

But the other door mirror was gone. Almost all other Rangers I found had "West Coast," truck-style, multipoint-braced mirrors that I rejected for this project. I did find one other Ranger with both black mirrors, almost like the one I liked.

Anti-theft mounting screws have kept these mirrors in place  long after the truck was junked.

But this one and its mate were mounted with anti-theft screws -- socket heads with a post in the center -- and I had no compatible driver. So I settled on a pair from an '80 Ford full-size wagon. These were electric in the Ford, but if I use them on the DeSoto they'll have to be manual.

Ford side mirrors might work on our car.

Neither plate bracket was lighted, of course. Brackets with integrated lamps seem to have disappeared from cars in about 1955. But we found a plate illuminator at a dune buggy and VW bug shop that might work. 

Front plate bracket from the flat-faced Caprice. It's curved. 

I liked that it attaches to the bottom of the bumper, hiding the bolts and avoiding drilling new ones either front or back.