Desoto Series S-11C Taxicab
Not just any typical American yellow cab, but a real movie star. In 1972 this DeSoto taxi featured in Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece ‘The Godfather’.
Five years later the taxi also appeared in the film ‘Thieves’ with ‘Professor’ Irwin Corey as the taxi driver. The red and yellow colour scheme is that of a San Francisco taxicab. This DeSoto has a ‘Fluid Drive’ system: a hydraulic coupling, allowing smooth gear changes.
The DeSoto marque, named after the Spaniard Hernando de Soto, who discovered the Mississippi river, was launched by the Chrysler Corporation in 1929. The DeSoto was a big success, partly due to a huge marketing campaign; 80,000 cars were sold in the first year of production. Sales fell in the 1950s and in 1960 the DeSoto disappeared from the market. Similar to the Chrysler, there was also an Airflow version of the DeSoto.