History of DeSoto & Why the Brand Was Cancelled (1928-1961) - Rise, Fall, & Death

hey guys so today's video is all about de Soto I made a video a few weeks ago talking about the Plymouth brand and its cancellation and I saw that some of you guys wanted me to do de Soto as well so that's what we're gonna cover today first we'll look at the history about the brand and then that will lead us into their cancellation and the reasons for that I also want to go over a list of de Soto production vehicles and concept cars at the end of the video so let's jump right into it walter Chrysler founded de Soto on August 4th of 1928 first introducing these vehicles for the 1929 model year Chrysler wanted to enter one of their brands to compete with Oldsmobile Buick Studebaker Hudson and Willy's which were all in the mid level price class the brand was named after Hernando DeSoto who was a Spanish explorer in the 1500s he is best known for leading the first Spanish and European expedition deep into what is now the modern-day United States through Florida Georgia Alabama Mississippi and Arkansas he was also the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River DeSoto was born in 1495 in extra Madeira Spain and he would die in 1542 at the age of 46 on the banks of the Mississippi River and what is now Ferriday Louisiana that's also why the DeSoto logo usually had an image of an explorer to resemble Hernando I've also found that there are many negative things that he did as well but this video is not the time or the place to discuss that was controversies so getting back to the cars 500 dealers were instantly attracted and that went up to 1500 by the end of the year so that meant for the first year of DeSoto in 1929 a record-breaking 80 1065 vehicles were produced and that record would stand until the 1960 Ford Falcons sold more in its first year DeSoto was targeted at a new segment of customers that had emerged since the end of World War 1 younger hipper and more affluent these were also one of the first cars marketed exclusively to women the very first DeSoto was a six-cylinder with 55 horsepower and it came with many features like an oil filter Lockheed hydraulic brakes standard automatic windshield wipers ignition lock brake lights an instrument panel controls for the headlights and a toolkit with a grease gun many of these features were either optional or not even offered by the other car manufacturers so this DeSoto was seen as a bargain the early names chosen or meant to VOC the passion associated with their Spanish namesake like the Roadster espanol sedan de Loup ho and Koopa de Loup ho in 1930 the Soto brought out the top-of-the-line DeSoto CF deluxe or DeSoto 8 which had a larger 114 inch wheelbase and an inline eight-cylinder engine with 70 horsepower DeSoto marked it as quote the world's lowest price straight aid that had a vast reserve of power when you need it and quote twenty thousand and seventy five of these eights were built for 1930 most selling for around nine hundred ninety five dollars when Chrysler purchased the Dodge Brothers it would create a bit of a clash as both the brands were mid-priced in those early years Chrysler priced the DeSoto is a little less than the dodges and by 1932 both brands were selling nearly 25 thousand vehicles a year Chrysler tried to keep DeSoto exciting and relevant by having publicity stunts one in 1932 where race car driver Peter DiPaolo raced across the US and ten days and another where race car driver Harry hearts drove the thing backwards across the u.s. in 1933 also in 1933 Chrysler decided to switch up Dodge in DeSoto making the Dodge models cheaper to try to boost their sales in 1934 Chrysler gave DeSoto the airflow body if you remember that weird backwards drive across the country Chrysler found that during that the cars moved more efficiently through the air with the body reversed the airflow was supposed to be a radical change giving it better gas mileage and aerodynamics and in some ways it was there were no more freestanding pieces like spare tires headlights or taillights just a smooth body arch throughout the vehicle the interior was moved 20 inches forward while the engine was moved between the front wheels instead of behind them so that put passengers between the wheelbase and reversed the traditional weight distribution creating a much smoother ride and that's something that most modern cars have followed since that airflow would set 32 stock car records most of which were about speed at the time which you can see on screen it also got great gas mileage averaging 21 point 4 mpg on a 3,000 plus mile trip that cost only $33 and six cents in gas walter Chrysler would also make the cover of Time magazine where he was asked quote do you think the public is ready for anything so radical and quote he responded by saying quote I know the public is always ready for what it wants and the public is always able to recognize genuine improvement and quote unfortunately that wasn't fully true for the airflo as while it was a success overseas in Europe where many manufacturers copy the airflow design the American customers still disliked the unorthodox styling and sales went down by 47% to just 13,000 940 air flows for 1934 without other models to fall back on chrysler revised it and released in 1935 air stream design cancelling the air flow in 1936 in 1939 chrysler spent fifteen million dollars on dies and retooling of their models and a few million of that went to DeSoto they called their new look Hollywood style and added an adjustable front seat gear shift lever on the steering column and a super finish to engine parts to increase their lifespan the 1939 was a big success with 50 4449 vehicles built DeSoto added a major styling element in 1941 the waterfall grille that would stand the test of time for the next 15 years or so on these vehicles it was kind of like a toothy grill that tumbled down the bumper there were also airflow headlight covers that were well received and a new semi-automatic transmission almost 100,000 the Soto's were built in the early 1940s that 1942 model is one of the most memorable of the entire DeSoto history civilian production was put on hold in 1942 as DeSoto joined the war efforts to produce Sherman tank parts Martin b-26 Marauder fuselage sections b-29 Superfortress nose sections Navy Helldiver wing sections and Bofur anti-aircraft gun parts after wartime restrictions on automotive production ended in late 1945 DeSoto reissued their 1942 models as 1946 models but without the hidden headlight feature the models included the deluxe and custom with various trim levels like station wagons and convertibles DeSoto would hit another home run in 1950 with a hardtop that they called the sportsman a new trim level for the custom going forward to Soto would released various sportsman trims under different model names these were basically convertibles with solid tops that you could not retract they had a unique look with a wraparound rear window these shaped rear roof pillars wide whitewall tires full wheel covers and interior perks as well sails hit their peak in 1949 as the soto sold 130 3850 for cars a record high for them that they would never match again during the late 1940s and early 1950s Cadillac Chrysler and Oldsmobile released new v8 engines creating a horsepower race this soda would enter that race as well with their 276 cubic inch fire dome hemi-head engine and they put that engine in a car with the same name this was fairly impressive with 160 horsepower a top speed of 100 miles per hour and it would also cut down to Soto 0 to 60 times by a full four seconds all with more horsepower per cubic inch displacement than any other motor available it's funny to think that this original 4000 120 pound fire dome could do 0 to 60 in 15.5 seconds which would be the slowest car on the road by today's standards forty five thousand eight hundred thirty fire domes were built but the production was still falling from that 133,000 854 in 1949 to a hundred and six thousand by 1951 and to 88 thousand in 1952 DeSoto restyled their models in 1953 making them longer wider and sleeker now DeSoto had great styling to go along with the Hemi powered engines some models after that included the fire sweep and fire flight the latter of which was the new top-of-the-line v8 in 1955 the fully loaded sedans cost around $3,100 us and the Soto sales had rose back up again to almost 130 mm for 1955 when talking about styling it's also a must to talk about designer Virgil Exner a key cog in the DeSoto web I'll keep it short since he could get a video just about him alone but he became GM's youngest ever design chief in his late thirties and then he was hired by Chrysler to run the advanced design studio by 1950 shortly after that a new president was hired as Katie Keller the man who hired Virgil was replaced by Lester eltechs Kolbert he gave Virgil free rein to build 18 different concept cars for Chrysler called idea cars at the time built on Chrysler Dodge Plymouth and DeSoto jassi's he also created the forward look for Chrysler for many years the automotive design had been focused around the engine but with this design the whole car literally seemed to leap forward it was available in the Dodge and Plymouth but it really looked exceptional on the Chrysler's and de Soto's 1956 would see a huge decline in the auto industry where Oldsmobile Buick Pontiac Dodge and Chrysler all experienced major losses in sales from the previous years however for some reason DeSoto didn't follow that trend and sales really didn't fluctuate much for them that year saw them released a new performance coupe called the adventurer and the car would be a pace car at the Indianapolis 500 for the first and last time in the brand's history the adventurer couldn't be matched in terms of power and top speed by anything else whether that be a Corvette or a Thunderbird it had a 320 horsepower Hemi came fully loaded with power steering brakes seats windows and wipers and had many other features the original selling price was three thousand six hundred and seventy-eight dollars which was 576 dollars less than the base chrysler 300 and it did have comparable performance and a better power-to-weight ratio the designer Virgil Exner had another hugely successful design with in 1957 DeSoto's with huge tail fins triple lens rocket launcher tail lights all in a slimmer package emulating something from the space-age Chrysler would add a 345 horsepower 345 cubic inch engine and a three-speed TorqueFlite automatic transmission that 1957 model year marked the largest lineup ever for DeSoto with the adventurer convertible and hardtop fire sweep with three trims and fire flight in the coupe convertible and station wagon form that led to a very decent year with DeSoto selling a hundred and seventeen thousand five hundred fourteen units the firedome was also improved around this time with an optional 305 horsepower 361 cubic inch v8 resulting in a 0 to 60 of 7.7 seconds and a top speed of 115 miles per hour even though we just went over how DeSoto had a successful 1957 that was also the start of their demise first off there was a recession so the unemployment rate had been rising up to 6.2 percent in 1958 which meant that according to my calculations that's ten point eight four million Americans unemployed many mid-range price vehicles and their manufacturers were hit hard like GM Chrysler and DeSoto other companies died altogether like Hudson and Nash Chrysler had many quality control issues that were later discovered resulting in many poorly built vehicles especially was DeSoto they were unprepared for the demand that they received resulting in plant capacity maxing out Chrysler tried to speed up the assembly lines and build cars faster but that caused tons of problems many hard tops leaked into the rain letting more water in than out and the leaks would extend to the windshields and rear windows there were issues with transmissions power steering units broken torsion bars splitting up whole Surrey flaking paint and radiators often needing multiple replacements in the same vehicle for the same part there were severe premature rusting on many vehicles as well pressure also embarrassed themselves by offering a $600 performance boost to the adventurer which added 10 horsepower up to 355 with Bendix electronic fuel injection unfortunately that system didn't work in basically every single vehicle and all of them had to be recalled and fixed things got so bad that Chrysler had to shut down the assembly line for an entire week just to try to fix things properly these issues proved to be a double-edged sword among DeSoto customers the loyal DeSoto people were used to high-quality vehicles so this angered that group of people and as for the new customers they were turned off by the issues and what it returned in the subsequent years the designers including Virgil were not ready to give up just yet though Virgil kept building prototypes including another concept convertible with the forward look no fins just smooth and sculpted body lines that concept would actually get improved for the 1962 model year Virgil was such a role model that Chrysler got their other brands to draw inspiration from him and his DeSoto designs DeSoto kept trying to improve in 1959 offering the fire sweep fire dome and fire flight in a whopping 26 different color variations or 192 tone combinations even with that happening Chrysler's special car committee began developing compact cars such as the Plymouth Valiant and began giving the Soto's development sales and management resources to the other brands which they thought would be more viable and profitable in a longer term basically DeSoto was tanking just a recap of it 1955 saw sales of a hundred fifteen thousand 485 from the fire dome and fire that dropped to 109 thousand four hundred twenty-two in 1956 but rose back up to 117 thousand five hundred fourteen in 1957 that was a year of the quality control issues so sales really suffered dropping 57.9% to just forty nine thousand four hundred forty five for the next year in 1958 and Chrysler themselves lost over forty million dollars that year things didn't improve as the sales kept dropping in nineteen fifty-nine to just forty five thousand seven hundred twenty four treasure also removed the soto from the Wyoming Avenue assembly plant for the first time since nineteen thirty six and shifted them over to the Jefferson Avenue sales for nineteen sixty dropped another fifty-seven percent to only twenty-six thousand and eighty one the 1960 DeSoto lineup reflected those poor sales the fire sweep and fire dome names were dropped as were all the station wagons and convertibles the adventurer became a fire flight and the fire flight replaced the fire dome still some improvements did come out like unibody construction shared with Chrysler vehicles better build quality and a seven-step rust proof process the final year in 1961 got another facelift and these models shared bodyshells and many other parts with various chrysler models obviously to keep cost down on a model that wouldn't sell very much they made just three thousand and thirty four vehicles with those spare parts for the final year there wasn't even a model name offered it was just called a DeSoto and you can choose either a two-door or four-door hardtop and both the model shared a unique front end prominent badging on the front grille and trunk lid full-length chrome Spears on the sides and both used 122 inch wheelbase the 1961 dealer brochure was almost begging customers to buy the vehicle I'll post that on screen so by this time there had been rumors for years about DeSoto getting canceled those 1961 models went on sale October 14 1960 but there was a lot of negative press Motor Trend wrote an article in November 1960 saying quote many observers seriously doubted whether DeSoto would introduce any car let alone a new car for 1960 generally speaking most persons thought that if the car did come out it would be a luxury compact and quote sales for the first 30 days were really poor prompt to finally decide to end the DeSoto production on November 30th 1960 on screen you can see the letter sent by telegram to all the dealers by EC Quinn letting them know that the Soto was getting canceled the last DeSoto rolled off the assembly line at the Jefferson Avenue assembly plant on November 29th of 1960 and after 32 years and over 2 million vehicles produced DeSoto was gone so that's the end of the video guys before I go I do want to show a list of passenger cars on screen so you can have an idea of some of the DeSoto vehicles released I'll show a quick picture for each along with the name and years produced that's the end of the video guys hopefully you enjoyed it were you a big DeSoto fan and did you ever own any models or did you even hear about this brand before this video if you were a younger person let me know down in the comment section below thanks for watching make sure to LIKE and subscribe for all your Mopar content and I'll see you in the next video [Music] [Music]

Channel: Marspeed

Views: 812,136

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Id: Rf_jrhJQ2hs

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 11 2020