For 1933, the Chrysler Corporation moved the DeSoto brand up the price ladder from just above Plymouth to second, just below Chrysler. The automaker had a plan.
Actress and singer Ruth Etting with a Standard Coupe
Introduced on August 4, 1928, the 1929 DeSoto was conceived by the Chrysler Corporation as an upmarket companion to Plymouth, which had launched just eight weeks earlier. In effect, the DeSoto was a Plymouth with six rather than four cylinders, much as the 1926 Pontiac was designed by General Motors to be a six-cylinder Chevrolet. Apart from the engine, the DeSoto shared many Plymouth components and was assembled in the same new plant on Lynch Road in Detroit. The DeSoto rollout was a nominal success, even though three Chrysler brands—Plymouth, DeSoto, and Dodge—were now crammed into a relatively narrow price bracket.
But for the 1933 model year, the DeSoto brand was assigned a new mission. DeSoto was moved upmarket, now slotted in above Dodge and one step below Chrysler. Also, production was moved from the Lynch Road Plymouth complex to the Chrysler plant on Jefferson Avenue, five miles Southeast. The corporation had big plans for DeSoto for 1934, where it would join Chrysler as one of the advanced new Airflow models. There was a second piece to the strategy, too. Dodge was now offering a new low-priced six in DeSoto’s former price bracket, using DeSoto’s six-cylinder engine. And meanwhile, Plymouth was now offering a six as well.
Custom Sedan
Unlike previous DeSoto years, there was a single model in the lineup for 1933, the SD, powered by a smaller 217.4 cubic-inch, 82 hp version of the Chrysler CO L-head six. Wheelbase was 114.4 inches, longer than the Plymouth and Dodge sixes, but shorter than the smallest Chrysler. The basic body shell was carried over from ’32, and with some refinement, the unique radiator shell and grille design as well. The distinctive horizontal grille bars make it easy to identify a ’32-’33 DeSoto to this day, while the ad writers decided the barrel-shaped radiator shell was inspired by the Miller Indianapolis race cars.
Custom Convertible Sedan
While there was but one model, there were two trim levels, Standard and Custom (or three, perhaps, as the Business Coupe was equipped below Standard level.) Custom equipment included twin horns, twin tail lamps, and soft-riding Goodyear Airwheel tires, a super-balloon design with a tall aspect ratio that required smaller 15-in diameter wheels. Prices ranged from $665 to $875, well above comparable Dodge models, and not surprisingly, the Standard and Custom four-door Sedans were the biggest sellers.
While the available body styles were typical Motor City offerings for the time, there was one noteworthy exception, a close-coupled, two-door Convertible Sedan proportioned more like a Victoria. (Just 132 were built.) President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt owned one specially fitted with hand controls and a centrifugal clutch so the President, who was stricken by polio at age 39, could drive it himself. Today that car is in the Smithsonian.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the family’s Convertible Sedan.
While DeSoto had sold more than 81,000 cars in 1929, its inaugural year, annual volume had fallen dramatically from there to around 25,000 units in 1932. The new product alignment for 1933 didn’t help, as sales slipped a little more to 23,000 vehicles. We could blame the failing economy but for the fact that Plymouth and Dodge scored healthy increases in ’33. Unfortunately, things would go from bad to worse for DeSoto in the following year with the brilliantly engineered but poorly received 1934 Airflow, when sales fell to just 13,940 cars.
DeSoto, the brand that never really had a chance. Walter Chrysler brings it out as a fudge against the Dodge negotiations falling through. So, the car is introduced simultaneously with the purchase of Dodge succeeding, giving Chrysler two cars where it only needs one. Then, bring on the 1934 Airflow. I’m often amazed that the DeSoto marque made it to the 1937 model year. In a GM-like setup, where each car brand was really individual from the others, it wouldn’t have.
The new 1933 DeSoto threatened the entire American automotive industry by packing Chrysler’s best components from all his brands into the best car Mr. Chrysler offered to date. Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler dealers all hated it, lost critical thinking customers to the new upgraded DeSoto. General Motors and Ford fiercely despised the new Desoto and resorted to aggressive smear campaigns in throughout the ’30s to destroy its reputation with a massive marketing blitz in major publications like the Saturday Evening Post, theater news reels and major newspapers of the era…
The organized smear campaign against DeSoto by GM and others started against these new 1933 models, then it really took off slandering our ’34-’37 Airflows…
This doesn’t really apply to the 1933 DeSoto but the 1933 Dodge. My Grandfather was a Buick man but for some reason bought a new 1933 Dodge. My parents were married in 1936 and moved in with him on the farm. It was located on the south side of the NE KS state line which is gravel road. I asked dad why mom never drove and this is what he said. Mom was learning to drive and drove the car about a mile and half to town. On the way home while turning too fast in the driveway the car when up on two wheels drove up the driveway on the two wheels when she got stopped in front of the barn the car dropped back down and bounced. She got out and never drove again. Dad said that car was way too top heavy, so they got rid of it and went back to Buicks. I would love to have seen it; my mom was short and never weighed over 96 pounds. lol
Another factor in the DeSoto’s upmarket move was the introduction of the 1933 Plymouth Six, the source of the famous “Look at All Three” challenge in the low-price field. Chrysler and Dodge dealers were understandably upset by this move–but since Plymouth was sold by all Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler dealers, they benefited by getting a customer to buy just one Plymouth–then upselling them to one of the other three brands