The never-ending Christmas present. For a DeSoto fan, that’s what we have in the barn here on craigslist. Take a couple of trailers to Coopersburg, Pennsylvania to clean out this collection of cars and parts amassed during 45 years of accumulation. You won’t know what all you have until you unpack at home, but the ad lists three 1937 DeSoto cars – one business coupe and two four-door sedans, four Hemi engines, and shelves of parts. The seller wants $32,111 for the whole package. A faint hint of desperation signals price flexibility. Rocco B tuned us up to this tip – thanks Rocco! Let’s parse the pile and consider the possibilities.
The two-passenger business coupe is said to have been a show winner at AACA in the preservation class. It has rehabilitated brake and fuel systems. It comes with trophies, club paraphernalia, shop manuals, even t-shirts! Behind the seats are shelves to display a salesman’s wares, and the trunk is large enough to swallow a Crosley. Chrysler founded the DeSoto nameplate to offer a high-quality product for a middling price – conflicting with its purchase of Dodge just a few years later. With both cars jostling for the mid-market customer – and Dodge and Chrysler already with established clientele – DeSoto limped into its sunset by 1961.
The two sedans are peeking at us nose-first. One has a new mohair interior – I’m going to guess that’s the black one but we don’t know since there’s no photo. The black sedan does look salvageable, with nice shut lines and all its lenses intact. The snazzy grille lines – extending along the car’s flanks – were one of the best features of this model – and here, you have at least three intact grilles! The package includes at least four 330 cu. in. Hemi engines along with cranks, heads, camshafts, bearings, valve covers, manifolds… This barn provides a veritable cornucopia of motor bits.
The new owner will also be hauling away shelves-worth of other parts. I’m happy to see labeled boxes – parts piles are so much more complicated without identification. Now the $64 question: what do we do with all of this? The seller suggests making a hot rod out of at least one car. Personally, I am in favor of resurrecting the business coupe and showing it at local venues. That shape is a memorial to days gone away, not to mention just plain sexy. The sedans are another issue altogether. I don’t have any great ideas for those – what would you suggest?
You would think that all this DeSoto stuff would better be sold through a DeSoto network, as opposed to just posted on Craigslist. Just guessing.
It just sweetens the deal
I have a headache from trying to interpret the craigslist ad. I am assuming whoever placed it is manic or under the influence.
Looking at the empty box on the front bumper could explain a lot :*}
Good eye!😜🤣
Totally agree. I had to write this up. It took me fifteen minutes just to figure out the ad.
Everyone needs to read the Craigslist ad
Uncle Ed,
Marketing is a skill. This seller may not have it. Common sense goes a long way to getting the job done, this seller may not have the either.
The other thing that may be happening here is the seller’s wife may want him to get rid of the collection. So he posts some marginal info on craigslist and hopes nobody in the area will show up to look at what’s really there and the out of town collectors won’t travel to see it without decent information. Then he gets to keep it.
Joe, Jeff Bennet reveiwed this car almost a year ago.
I believe you might be right!
Nope, the way I see this, some “Snowflake” inherited grandpas “collection”, and is expressing it in the only way they know how, with catchy, phone related emoticons, and such,, thinking, EVERYBODY knows that language, when, in fact, the jokes on them, as anyone interested in a DeSOTO, won’t have the faintest idea what they are talking about. How quickly we forget, as when I was young, we had a hippie language all our own, and our parents didn’t know what we were saying either.
I was exposed to Toronto’s Yorkville hippie culture through
my Poet/Producer mother all through 67,68,69 & 70s whilst
my straight laced Chartered Accountant father went to work
everyday on Bay Street. Joni Mitchell had her house three
doors down from the Penny Farthing Coffee House where
all the hippies congregated daily to listen to Folk Music & Poetry
Readings. They’d swim naked in the backyard pool whilst poetry
readings were manifesting. My mother knew the hippies well, but
my dad thought they should all be shot lined up against a wall
because they all disliked Nixon.
I’m a copyeditor who for years taught college-level English composition as an adjunct instructor. I continually stressed to every class the purpose of all essay writing, which is to persuade an audience. Yet many students would not, or could not, assimilate this simple principle, and they invariably failed my courses. Were the ad writer my student, he or she certainly would have joined their ranks.
The blue one is in a YouTube video titled: A Walk About A 1937 DeSoto At the 2018 Das Awkscht Fescht
Thanks for the tip. I watched the video. Sweet, unmolested, original car!
I agree with Rex. The National DeSoto club would be a great place to start for moving this collection. I would have been interested in this twenty years ago. Today only the business coupe would hold any interest for me. At this stage of my life I am trying to declutter. The ad is a bit different but I really didn’t have too much trouble understanding it. I hope some DeSoto fans will preserve this. Obviously the long time work of a DeSoto person. GLWTS.
I met this gentleman in 2016 just after I bought a 39 Plymouth coupe and he took the time to educate me on these cars, he was pretty up there in age at that time, a bit ecentric, but a nice guy and very very informed about them.
Love the grille on this car. Appears to be super solid. No interest in the plethora of parts and the very optimistic asking price. For a nice right up on the blue coupe, search on, “The Blue Beast: 1937 DeSoto Business Coupe”. Has a very nice write up from 2020 by the owner and more pictures.