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Greeting from Melbourne, Australia. I have been an NDC member for several years but first time user of this forum. I have a 1959 Firesweep sedan, Australian delivery, right hand drive, not running. Inquiries I have made indicate that only 96 of these vehicles were assembled in this country, so I'd like to think I am pretty lucky to get hold of one even though it was last driven in 1969! I have been in touch on-line recently with Alan Ralston and sent him a number of photos of my vehicle. After viewing the photos Alan identified what was to him an obvious difference between my Australian De Soto and the US produced vehicles. According to him the instrument panel/dash is not the same as US vehicles. As '59 models are extremely rare here, there was nothing to compare it with, and any comparison would be useless as it appears the Australian vehicles all have the same interior. After making a few inquiries here on the net, I reckon the dash/instrument panel is the same as the 1957 Dodge. It seems that Dodge, Plymouth & De Soto were all being assembled at the same plant in Adelaide, South Australia between '57-59. Perhaps the men on the assembly line had a lucky dip into the crate of parts! Any other ideas? Hope the photos loaded OK. Anecdotal evidence here (my older brother) suggests that the De Soto's built here in the 50's were of notoriously poor build quality.
Murray Phillips
19 Eliza Close, Bayswater
Melbourne, Victoria, Aust.
desoto1959@rabbit.com.au
Murray: As you may know, Alan Ralston has been plotting 1959 DeSoto production for a number of years
I found an email (circa Feb 2001) from a person in Australia who also had a 59 Firesweep like yours
Some items from the email
He references that there were 93 Firesweeps shipped and that he had located 27
The cars were marked CKD Completely Knocked Down
The dash is from the 58 Dodge and was used on all RHD 59s. Pictures of his car show the 58 dash with a 59 DeSoto steering wheel and horn ring
Good luck with the car
Thanks Bob, you are quite correct. I dug around and found a photo of the interior of a 1959 Dodge Custom Royal RHD taken at a local Chrysler meet. Same dash and winscreen, no doubt about it.
Hi Murray, I'm in Brisbane, I have a 54 Desoto Firedome Coupe i imported when I moved back here from California several years ago. Currently a full restoration but Ill make the trip to the Great Ocean road one day 
1954 DeSoto Firedome 8 Club Coupe
Sounds good Ben. A 1954 De Soto coupe. When I was a teenager I knocked around with with some blokes near Bendigo. They were 3 brothers. 2 of 'em had 1954 Dodges and the oldest brother had a dark blue 1954 DeSoto sedan. This was in the early 70's and their father made them buy these cars mainly because you could survive a crash, not to mention that they were cheap at the time because no-one wanted them. We would hammer those cars all over the place, but if we wanted to cruise to a dance to look for girls, it would always be in the De Soto! It had more style. If you are going to do the Great Ocean Road, do it in winter, or at least not in the holiday period because it's like a car park. I know that road like the back of my hand as it was always a good road trip for a couple of days with mates in a convoy of cars when we were young. Funnily enough, I was last down there in March last year just for a drive in an old Mitsubishi Pajero that I have since got rid of. As I was cruising through Lorne looking at all the trendy tourists sipping their latte's, I gave a slow moving car in front of me a toot and the bloody horn got stuck, all the way through town with a red face and copping curious stares until I could find an angle park and hurrriedly guess which fuse to pull. I'll never get impatient behind the wheel like that again!. Good luck with your projects. I just remembered that one of the brothers from Bendigo now lives in Brisbane, near the big army base Enoggera I think it is.
