Just found this on Facebook Marketplace; the car is located on Staten Island, about 35 miles southeast of me. Will it be saved? Does anyone care?
When I saw the photos included in the seller’s ad, I thought–except for the modern cars in the background, this could be a scene from about 1970 or so, when these late ’50s Forward Look cars were about reaching their end. As a matter of fact, I remember as a kid being on the lookout for artifacts like this–usually found parked behind gas stations, wrecking yards, and old factories.
Here’s the seller’s description:
After reading this, I started to wonder: OK, you have a rare and potentially valuable car that’s running–why would you let it sit out in the elements uncovered for six years, never starting it? Sitting that long without starting is really bad for a car. Not to mention getting rained on and baked in the hot sun all that time. If only I was there six years ago to save it from that fate…
Miraculously, there seems to be some gleam in the paint, but how much of that bumper rust was caused by sitting outside for so long without care?
Of course, there could be more to the story. This appears to be a used car lot or body shop–maybe the DeSoto belonged to an old person who died, and the car was just recently towed there. Who knows?
That was the case with my ’58 Ford which I purchased in 2014. It had been sitting unused since about 2001. A towing company removed it after its original owner died, and they parked the car at their place. The tires were dry-rotted to shreds and the gas in the tank was varnish. But the engine ran, and after I bought it, it wasn’t too much of a trick to fix things up and get the old Ford back out on the road. Today, it still runs and drives beautifully. But the Ford had been stored inside all those years, not outside.
Checking the interior of this DeSoto–things actually look pretty good. The dash vinyl is a little wrinkly, but not awful. All the doors are missing their door cards, which for me is a major minus. You can’t really reproduce those, and finding replacements (in that color) will be nearly impossible. Ditto on the missing windshield and back window outside moldings. And the bright metal pieces forming the sweep-spears on the front fenders. Maybe these items are stored elsewhere?
The original front seat upholstery actually looks decent, to my surprise. Is that part of the headliner covering the seat? If we need a new headliner–1000 bucks right there!
Yes, it’s a monster–but with such beautiful details!
“Firesweep”— a wonderful name (and a wonderful script)!
To show you how rare this car is, I Google Image searched for another 1957 Firesweep 4-door hardtop, and found only ONE located in the United States. It was in New Ulm, Minnesota and recently sold for about $4500. By contrast, images of ’57 Chevys–tons of ’em!
This DeSoto has been on Facebook Marketplace for 16 weeks and the asking price is $6800–and no takers. This tells me two things: 1) The price may be too high and/or; 2) No one in the entire densely populated New York City area cares enough about this car to want to own it and partially or fully restore it. Disappointing on both counts. Meanwhile, the Firesweep continues to rot.
To show you what’s possible, I bought a 1962 Imperial which was sitting in the woods under pine trees for a long time. The engine ran, but everything else was questionable. I paid $900, got it towed out of there, and started cleaning and fixing things. It became a good looking, good driving car, and I ended up selling for $5500–however, I probably spent somewhat more than $4600 on it, so I didn’t make a profit. But so what–that wasn’t the point.
So farewell, old DeSoto–it was nice seeing you. You’ve made it this far; where will you go from here? As the song goes, “All you need is love.” But will you find it?
Further CC Reading
Curbside Classic: 1957 DeSoto Firesweep–Curbside Service (by Jason Shafer)
1957 DeSoto Fireflite Sportsman Hardtop–Like One I Found In A Desolate Location 40 Years Ago (by Stephen Pellegrino)
eBay Classic: 1958 DeSoto Firesweep Sedan–Solid Rose Beige (by Stephen Pellegrino)
My 1962 Imperial Custom–Rescuing The Big Green Monster (by Stephen Pellegrino)
The ad says it all. “Sitting 6 years” and “must go” do not mesh well with the “don’t lowball”. Body/paint/chrome, interior and mechanical – of the three major areas for attention, this car needs major work on all 3. Someone could get this car for free and probably lose money bringing it back to something reasonably serviceable and presentable, never mind actually restoring it. If this was a convertible, I would say the guy is being realistic. Here – no way.
Which is sad. I am like you, and would love to see someone come along who will give this car some love, fix the parts that can be fixed and preserve the rest. But I guess we can’t save all of them.
Actually it looks like its had a frontal smack there are no holes in the front fenders for the missing trim so those are from something else.
Clearly the seller never heard the line about how you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Whenever I see one of those ads – and FB Marketplace for some reason is full of them – that warns “don’t lowball” or “don’t waste my time”, I generally assume that the seller is some manner of wackadoo and don’t bother. What’s the harm in answering the phone, maybe building a bit of a relationship, and selling your car (which is sort of the end point you want to reach anyway, no?). Scaring off potential customers by indicating that you don’t have the time to talk to them seems counterproductive; i.e., wackadoo.
Hopefully the door cards are in the trunk.
I assume anyone from LI is a hearty helping of wackadoo. Hard pass
It’s on Staten Island, not Long Island, but the seller could still be wackadoo for all I know. Disclaimer: I’ve never lived in the NYC area, and I don’t know which areas are more or less wackadoo.
Just as true love knows no season, Wackadoo knows no geography.
LOL – Comment of the week
Facebook Marketplace is FULL of ads for low tier old cars in need of some love and a sizeable cash injection. I think the golden era of restoration for 1940-1970 cars is over, if it hasn’t happened yet it’s probably not going to happen for this poor Desoto. Sad but true 🙁
I’d love to take a crack at this one, but I already have an old car that looks good and runs, and I can’t find the time to get it back on the road… Gah!
The Firesweep is bottom of the barrel DeSoto, essentially a badge-engineered Dodge, w/ Dodge powerplant and short wheelbase not shared by the 3 other DeSoto models.
The car is crazily overpriced. Seller can ask, but the price is ridiculous.
Any realistic offer will be a lowball based on his parameters.
As far as the antique car business goes, it is a bottom of the line with two doors too many. Too much hard to find stuff although the window trim from a 57 Dodge may work.
Wonder why it was left next to the dumpster.
Six years ago when it was parked it most likely didn’t look any better than it did now. Except at that time the seller probably was asking $3k for it. And didn’t get it then either. “Rare” does not equate to “valuable”. You yourself may be the most likely buyer, actually! 🙂
It’s sitting out back next to the dumpster for a reason, the first picture tells the perfect story without any words needed. It’s vaguely cool as a parked artifact and letting readers perhaps relive their rose-tinted 1950s dreams but as a car? No, there’s a reason tri-5 Chevies are (were? I don’t see nearly as many about as just a decade ago and never driven by anyone under 60) so popular. They were good, attractive, and everyone had a story.
1950s cars (the everyday stuff anyway that nobody can name off the top of their heads) are rapidly becoming the 1920s cars. I’m about your age and I’ve been semi-eyeballing a foreign car of 1984 vintage on Craigslist. That’s where the interest is going, assuming people can still afford these “hobbies” with the skyrocketing healthcare costs, housing costs, slowdown in hiring, worrying about being snatched off the street and every other thing that’s been happening as of late. Better to just save the $6k, it’ll likely find a more pressing (albeit far less enjoyable) use sooner than later.
Thanks for sharing it.
“You have a rare and potentially valuable car that’s running” rare, yes. Valuable? Unlikely. Just replating the existing chrome will set you back at least $20K and being a NY car, it’s got corrosion in all the wrong, hidden, inaccessible, places. The nearest chemical dipping I could find is several states away so get ready to haul the carcass out and back.
You’re going to have to spend about $60K to have a car worth about $15K.
This car is probably worth a few bucks as parts source, but $6800? NFW.
The seller would be doing good to receive any offer at all and would be smart to seriously consider any offer. He’s obviously the dog with the bone but there are lots of bones out there.
Oh man, if I were a tad younger I’d take it on. It’s only 4 hrs away and I’ve had a ’58 Firesweep 4 dr hardtop (pic) that I sold to Sweden, as well as a ’58 Firedome 2 dr hardtop and ’58 Windsor 4 dr hardtop (same car basically), so obviously I love these cars. Sigh.
And it’s true that one could get it free but still lose money. The only way it makes sense is to get the mechanicals sorted as cheaply as possible and drive it as a “patina” car. This trend is becoming more popular due to the insane cost of restoration, as I well know from experience. A 300C would make sense, this car, no,
“It’s Delovely, it’s Delightful, it’s DESOTO” .
An inglorious end to a rare and once nifty car .
The paint and lack of visible rust makes me wonder if it was perhaps garaged until these boobs got ahold of it .
Might could but a fun (if thirsty) hobby car, I fear it’ll wind up being used as a movie co. “rent to wreck” and go out in a fireball .
-Nate
Its rare but nobody cares, this isnt a new thing its been the case for a while in NZ, nobody is buying old cars it doesnt matter what the brand is, nothing is selling, that car is worth gold here but its 20k landed in postage, roadworthy maybe another 10k if theres zero rust or previous repairs, so you’d need to be keen to import something never sold here, then you need the parts that are missing or broken,
I like it but I dont want one.
A Grade 1 four door hardtop may top out in value around $30K. Grade 1 is considered a professional restoration. That type of work could be anywhere from $40-70K depending. No one, in their right mind, would do that on this car or any other car where the final value is far less than the expense. At least no one should. So drop it to a Grade 2 value of $18K and you can see that it is impossible. The seller is over priced on a car with very hard to find parts. So cut the price in half but one still has to find that gotta have it DeSoto nut of which there can’t be many. Of course the seller sees an old, rare (not that kind of rare), 50’s car, and knows (thinks) he has something. The time for these 50s cars has passed as the demographics has moved on.
Make sure the frame’s in good shape; if it is offer the guy 10-one dollar bills for it … show him the money. If he takes it, haul it out that day and go about “fixing it up.” Forget the restoration “thing” … it’s not worth it.
If he refuses, walk away.
I just read my post … it should have said. “ten one-hundred dollar bills.”
Ten one-dollar bills would have too cheap!
Yes, he would have accused you of lowballing.
While it certainly wouldn’t have not weathered as much if it had been stored inside, it is in much better shape because it was stored w/o a cover. Yes there are some high dollar covers that will protect a car exposed to wind, rain and snow, but the cheap covers will accelerated damage if exposed to wind, rain and snow.
Unfortuntely this is almost certainly destined for the wrecking yard and to go in the crusher intact. It is rare but there aren’t that many Desoto fans left to care, this one has been smacked pretty hard in the front at least once before and when they repaired it they couldn’t be bothered to drill holes and transfer the trim and they went with a cheap straightened and re-chromed bumper or the donor was in worse shape weathering wise.
I agree that 1,000 2025 dollars would be a fair price. Just be advised that you WILL end up spending the other 5,500 dollars to get it into some kind of running shape—– if you are lucky! It is a finned ’50’s Mopar, so it is kind of cool. Four door hardtops are neat. Could this be a nice low buck project? There are too many unknown variables to know. Is this likely to be a money pit? Absolutely, as all old cars are, and this one won’t be worth very much even if it is up and running. So the purchase price needs to be low, to entice a DIY guy to buy it and see what they can do with it. A true restoration is out of the question with cars like this. Would I buy something like this? Maybe, but the price would have to be very low.
There’s a certain temptation, but I think I’ll pass.
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The economic, practical and technical arguments already expressed tip me to wait for a 1958 with those 2 missing headlights restored