Chrome, Sweet Chrome: The 1958 Classic That Won Her Heart

Christina Park, 24, a genetic counselling assistant at a children’s hospital who lives in Columbus, Ohio, on her 1958 DeSoto Firesweep Sportsman, as told to A.J. Baime.

My father started his company dealing in classic car parts when he was about 15, so since I was born, I have been around it. He was always rotating cars, new ones coming all the time. When I was 11 or 12, a DeSoto showed up on a trailer. I was just getting to the age where I was noticing cars, and what I liked and didn’t like. I liked fins, chrome and pretty colours. This DeSoto was all of that. I fell in love with it instantly, and, ever since, DeSotos have been close to my heart.

Most people, even up to my parents’ age, don’t know what DeSoto is, since DeSoto ended production in model year 1961. DeSoto was its own make of cars under the Chrysler umbrella, just like Dodge and Plymouth.

One weekend in 2016, my dad asked me if I wanted to go to an estate sale, which was a pretty common thing. When we got there, we found this DeSoto Firesweep Sportsman in the back of a garage, and it was for sale. Not too many people were there, and it was clear that no one had tried to start this car in many years. The colours were beautiful, and the car was similar to the DeSoto I had fallen in love with years earlier.

The Firesweep ended up coming home with us. I was 16, and, from the start, my dad said he would teach me what I needed to know to get it running and take care of it myself. But also, that it would be my car to do with what I wanted. When we started working on it, we were not sure how it was going to go. It needed a lot of TLC. We went through the usual mechanics. When we took off all the original belts and hoses, they cracked in our hands like pretzels. We put new tires on and polished the chrome. A year after we brought it home, it started right up.

It wasn’t my daily driver, but I started driving the DeSoto and, occasionally, taking it to school. Even people who were not car fans thought it was cool because of the paint and the chrome, and how different the styling was from anything you saw at the time. People were a little astonished by it.

Now, I have three DeSotos, but two of them are project cars that are not roadworthy. The Firesweep Sportsman gets stored through the Midwestern winters. But this time of year, I begin getting it ready for summer. I drive it to car shows and anywhere I can. Last summer, I put 1,600 miles on it. It is almost always the only DeSoto at a car show, so getting to show it off and talk about the brand is very rewarding.

I joined the National DeSoto Club even before I owned a DeSoto, and for the past two years, I have taken my car to the national conventions. It is a great community. A lot of the members are older, but there are younger people, and it’s so great to hang out with people who share this passion. The community is also very helpful if you have to find a rare part or need help doing something mechanically.

At the first national convention I went to, in 2022, I met the club’s magazine editor, David Frank. We started meeting up at other car events, and now we are two years into our relationship. He has a 1959 DeSoto Fireflite and, while he lives in Wisconsin and I live in Ohio, twice we have had our cars together. I guess I have gotten more than I ever could have expected out of my love for DeSoto.