While the Chrysler Corporation’s DeSoto division somehow managed to stagger into the 1961 season, the final year the brand offered a full lineup came in 1959.
Firedome Sportsman Hardtop Sedan
On September. 22-23, 1958, the Chrysler Corporation invited its DeSoto dealers from across the country to Detroit to celebrate the 30th birthday of the brand with a stage show, a lavish cookout, and a performance by Jack Kochman’s Hell Drivers. The grand finale, of course, was a preview of the 1959 DeSotos with a full product lineup that included the Firesweep, Firedome, Fireflite, and Adventurer. While fear for the future of the brand was already brewing in the Chrysler corporate offices, it’s safe to bet, it wasn’t shared with the retail franchisees in the festivities at the Michigan State Fairgrounds.
Firesweep Sedan
Introduced in 1957, the Firesweep was DeSoto’s’ price and volume leader, based on the smaller Dodge platform but with the full complement of DeSoto styling features. (See our feature here.) Offered in a broad range of body styles—a sedan, two-door and four-door Sportsman hardtops, and wagons—it sold in decent numbers, mainly by robbing sales from Dodge and the premium DeSoto models. That was an unhealthy and unsustainable development, and this would be the final year for the Firesweep in the DeSoto lineup.
Firedome Two-Door Sportsman
The mid-range Firedome, the deluxe Fireflite, and the Adventurer, DeSoto’s sport-specialty model, continued in 1959 on the longer 126-in wheelbase chassis and a facelift on the ’58 package. Standard in the Adventurer was a new 383 cubic-inch V8 with 350 hp, an extra-cost option on the Firedome and Fireflite. Base prices for the DeSoto senior lines ranged from $3,234 to $4,749, almost directly on top of the Chrysler brand, DeSoto’s corporate sibling. But the best seller was the low-priced Firesweep starting at $2,904, claiming nearly 44 percent of the total.
Firesweep celebrating the production of 2 million DeSotos since 1928
In 1959, DeSoto celebrated the production of two million vehicles since its founding in 1928. But annual volume had now slipped below 50,000 cars, a troubling descent from the 1957 mark of 117,000 cars for the model year. So for 1960 the product line was slashed to just two models, Adventurer and Fireflite, with the Adventurer emblem now attached to the division’s flagship model. In 1961, which proved to be the final year, there was a single model.
Named after the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, who had a troubled career himself, in 33 years the DeSoto brand never truly found a clear lane in the U.S. car market. Launched by Chrysler in the same year as Plymouth and its acquisition of Dodge Brothers, it faced stiff enough competition from its own sibling makes, Dodge and Chrysler. With the full benefit of hindsight, Chrysler simply had too many brands in its product portfolio. The final reckoning came on November 30, 1960, when the last DeSoto rolled off the line.
Fireflite Shopper Station Wagon
A poorly veiled–possibly from the writer himself–attack on capitalism.
Sorry, not following you. The free market determined DeSoto’s fate. People wouldn’t buy them so Chrysler stopped making them. -mcg
Is the attack in the room with you?
Huh? I saw it as a pretty good description of what has happening to the marque in the last half of the Fifties. Brand differentiation was never a Chrysler strong suit.
Ironically, the 1959 DeSoto was enshrined on film for possibly two seasons during the closing credits of “Leave it to Beaver.” A two-door Sportsman hardtop is seen driving past Wally and the Beaver as they walked home (not sure which series it was, but it may have been a Firesweep). And the following year, an episode of “Pete and Gladys” shows Harry Morgan pulling into his driveway in a 1960 DeSoto 2-door hardtop (may have been an Adventurer)…
It’s amazing that the GM model of multiple marques lasted as long as it did. Three brands within the same country seems to be the limit, and only GM and Volkswagen come to mind as keeping it successful. Now of course there are rumors that VW is in dire straits and may be absorbed by China.
I kinda marvel at that, too. GM clung to all those brands long after it was no longer the profitable path. Toyota was selling more cars with three brands than GM could sell with eight, and the added cost in product development and marketing was enormous. Trying to manage GM has been likened to turning an aircraft carrier around. Really, it was more like trying to rotate the Sphinx on its axis. -mcg
Whenever someone says ’59 DeSoto, the first thing to my mind is that Cosmo Fishhawk, the editor bird in Jeff Macnelly’s Shoe had one, in factory-correct pink, that occasionally appeared in the comic strip. One line I remember was “Irv (his mechanic), is this covered by a warranty?” “No, it’s covered by a tarp.” It turned out that Macnelly actually had a ’59 DeSoto. He must have been a MoPar guy, too. In another strip that I remember, Skyler (the young bird) is sitting at a school desk taking a test. The question is “Describe the State of Kentucky”. He writes, “The state of Kentucky resembles a ’53 Plymouth Cranbrook after a front-end collision.”
Anyway, for my money, for most of the ’50s, esp ’50-52 and ’55-57, DeS was the best-looking of Chrysler’s offerings. When I was a grad student at Rutgers in the ’70s, an old lady down the street had a very attractive and pristine ’55 DeS 4-dr in teal over black/white. It took a LONG time for her to back it out from the carriage house where it resided.
It’s a great pity that DeS couldn’t have soldiered on for another year. The design mockups for the ’62s that you covered was far and away the ONLY MoPar design for ’62 worth remembering. After the ’62 Dodges appeared, there must have been more than a few at Chrysler who wondered why they hadn’t dropped Dodge instead.
1959 was the final year for full frame Desoto construction, the switch to uni-body for 1960 only accelerated the end, as the Desoto was then nearly identical to the Chrysler Windsor/Newport.
Very few historical accounts of Desoto’s demise include the kickback corruption investigation that toppled Chrysler President William Newberg also quickly snared DeSoto’s marketing director, Jack Minor. Returning Chrysler CEO Lester Lum “Tex” Colbert, faced with an extremely toxic public relations nightmare, an uncertain economy, and an unpromoted car line that was no longer making any money, Colbert and the Board of Directors saw no reason to rebuild DeSoto. Just a few weeks after Minor cleared out his office, Chrysler officially pulled the plug and terminated the Desoto brand…
A black-and-gold 1959 DeSoto Adventurer ordered with dual-quad wedge, a 3-on-the-tree manual transmission, a Sure-Grip differential, and a radio/heater/carpet delete is my theoretical dream build. While the standard Adventurer came fully loaded with a push-button automatic, power seats, and premium radio to serve as DeSoto’s luxury halo car, a buyer could theoretically use Chrysler’s slecial/fleet-ordering system to strip the weight out and turn the 350-horsepower monster into a pure 1959 racing machine…