DeSoto and the End of Plymouth: It Was The Firesweep's Fault
by Mike Sealey and Jim Benjaminson
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DeSoto and the End of Plymouth: It Was The Firesweep's Fault by Mike Sealey and Jim Benjaminson |
Much of what we've been hearing in the wake of the death of Plymouth comes back in one way or another to sibling rivalries. There was no LH Plymouth, and some say that was the beginning of the end. Others go back to the R-body cars, where the Newport was originally supposed to sell to former fullsize Plymouth buyers, or the Cordoba, the Chrysler make's first B-body, or even the original fullsize Dart line, which replaced Plymouth in Dodge showrooms in '60.
I would contend that the whole thing started unraveling three years earlier as a result of Chrysler's first determined effort to take one of its makes downmarket into territory belonging to one of its siblings. While this car was incredibly successful in its first year of production, other MoPar makes followed its lead into fratricidal competition, which eventually killed off not only this model's parent make but set events in motion which may have killed Chrysler's tradional "volume brand" forty years later.
Targeted at the traditional Dodge buyer, built on a Dodge wheelbase, built in Dodge plants, and powered by Dodge engines, that car was the 1957 DeSoto Firesweep (S-27).
Chrysler had traditionally been less prone to intercorporate competition than GM, whose original fullsize Buick Special was probably the best-selling medium-priced car throughout the '40s and '50s, taking many sales that might have gone to Pontiac or Oldsmobile had the Special (and the LeSabre that replaced it after '58) not dipped so far into the other brands' turf. The Chrysler Windsor was very similar in market niche and price to the Special, and while its reach was not as long as that of the Buick, it had always hovered uncomfortably close to DeSoto in price. (A good example of this would be 1955-56, where roughly the same money would buy you either a DeSoto Fireflite, with a hemi and a slightly higher level of trim, or a Chrysler Windsor, a poly-head V8 powered and slightly less fancy version of the same basic car with the added cachet of the Chrysler name, which at that time still signified a luxury brand or close to it to many people.)
Having more or less successfully (if uncomfortably) faced its own intercorporate competitor since at least 1935, and seeing no end in sight, DeSoto set its sights on the next rung down the ladder with the introduction of the Firesweep in late 1956. The Firesweep used Dodge's 122" wheelbase (senior DeSotos shared the 126" wheelbase with the Windsor) and the shorter Dodge front clip mated to the DeSoto/Chrysler main body. Virtually all Firesweeps were powered by the poly-head version of Dodge's 325 V8. (Dodge also offered a 325 hemi in '57, while DeSoto used a 341 hemi in its non-Adventurer senior models, but neither of these engines are believed to have made it into Firesweeps from the factory.) An additional 100 Firesweeps were equipped with Dodge and Plymouth's 230 ci L-head 6; these are believed to have been a fleet order for a cab company, possibly DeSoto Cab of San Francisco (still in business and still running MoPars today).
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The Firesweep sold well in '57, as did all the Chrysler makes that year; it sold so well, in fact, that the '58 Chrysler Windsor copied it in its use of the Dodge wheelbase and front clip. While the '58 recession hit all medium-priced makes hard, and Chrysler's '57 quality control problems giving the MoPar lines an extra hit in '58, the Windsor sold relatively well at its new lower price. Of course, the Dodge-based Windsor hurt DeSoto more than the other Chrysler makes, helping sent it into a spiral from which it never recovered.
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By '60, the flood gates were broken. The Windsor was selling in DeSoto and senior Dodge territory, while the Dart line took Dodge into Plymouth territory (and provided the lion's share of Dodge sales for '60, while playing a part in Plymouth's loss of its traditional 3rd place to Rambler). The trend continued in '61 with the introduction of the Chrysler Newport, which along with the '62 Dodge Custom 880 filled the hole where DeSoto had been, while the Polara essentially moved downmarket in '62 to become essentially Dodge's Fury, a position it would maintain until its own end.
As Chryslers became more like Dodges and Dodges became more like Plymouths, the boundaries continued to blur until eventually one Chrysler product became pretty much a clone of another, a situation that climaxed in Plymouth's euthanasia late last year.
I think it started with the Firesweep; what do you think?
"Adding the Firesweep gave DeSoto price penetration into 91% of the market" (Jim Benjaminson, Illustrated Plymouth & DeSoto Buyers Guide).
It sounded good on paper -- but Chevrolet and Ford alone (without Plymouth) sold over 50% of the new cars sold in 1957--91% of less than half---is still nothing.
Mike - its an interesting story and one that shows the corporate "think" of the era. Actually I put the start of the downhill slide much further back--to 1940 to be exact; after the death of Walter P. Chrysler (and with K.T. firmly in control) Plymouth was literally ignored -- as was DeSoto. However, DeSoto's reason for being in the first place was to put Clarence Dillon (of Dillon, Read Co.) on the hot seat to sell the Dodge Brothers to Chrysler Corporation.
Let me quote you from a new book due out shortly on WPC -- "...DeSoto was never intended to be anything but a ploy; that ploy worked because it was presented to the public and industry as a thoroughly serious propositon, laid out and pursued with full vigor and optimism". (Vincent Curcio, Chrysler--The Life & Times Of An Automotive Genius)
From the beginning, DeSoto was expendable--but it ended up setting a first year record for a new make that lasted over 30 years. Still, it never fit -- the hierarchy of the corporation from 1928 to 1933 was Plymouth, DeSoto (actually they were the same car except for the engines), Dodge, and Chrysler. After '33 it was Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler. Sharing bodies, engines, drivetrains, etc., saved Chrysler a ton of money during the depression years (and virtually all companies practice that idea today) but in the long run, the cars never had their own personalities.
Its unfortunate it took from 1928 to 1961 before DeSoto went by the wayside -- it just took longer for Plymouth to meet the same fate. What contributed to its death? FIRST AND FOREMOST, its own lack of dealer body, separate from everyone else. Despite being the corporations bread and butter car,, it was also last with the least--last with power steering, power brakes, V8 engine, automatic transmission.
Did the Firesweep hurt -- Yep!
Did the '60 Dodge Dart hurt -- yep!
Did the Valiant hurt -- YEP! Was anything done to reverse this situation --well, you know the answer to that one....
The 91% price penetration figure is an interesting one; was that a commonly used stat in that era? (I've only heard it used once before, in a '51 model year communique from Kaiser-Frazer announcing that with the addition of the Henry J, K-F dealers had greater price penetration than any competing franchise; looks like it did them even less good than it did DeSoto...)
Interesting about DeSoto as a ploy to get Dodge also. I was looking through a book of automotive trademarks from the 1920s and 1930s a few years back and found what appears to be the original DeSoto logo, trademarked about 1928 to "Amplex Corp." (which I seem to remember as a shirttail Chrysler subsidiary, but forget what they made). This logo also did not have the "Chrysler Motors Product" reference I normally associate with Plymouth, DeSoto, and Fargo badges of that era.
Did Curcio mention the '29-'31 domestic Fargo truck line? Sounds like that was probably the original plan for DeSoto as well, although I guess it'd be easier to pull the pin on Fargo as long as its former dealerships still had cars to sell. (Was Byron Foy GM of DeSoto from the beginning? I imagine the WPC-son-in-law angle could be a further complication...)
Just read with much enjoyment the Sealy/Benjaminson discussion over the DeSoto. Jim reminded me of a couple concepts that I hadn't put together about the DeSoto. That it was meant as a ploy is an interesting concept. That Byron Foy was the Son-in-law factor is also interesting.
I do have to agree with JB though that the makings of the fall of the entire Corporation began when Mr. Walter failed to have any sires/heirs/family connections in line to continue with his ideas. When he passed, so did the original corporation. The truly ultimate failing was not to get Plymouth standing on it's own, for which my Father fought so vigorously for.
As another great American said: "A house divided against itself cannot long endure". In our lifetimes, we have seen the sad result. Nice to see JB putting in his 2 cents again.
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