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Expert
Posts: 1267
Location: San Antonio TX | Pretty car. Been on Ebay for about a day and it's already up to over $26k https://www.ebay.com/itm/DeSoto-Firesweep/323367905655?hash=item4b4a3aa977:g:y0kAAOSwzZFbWeSH&vxp=mtr |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 9672
Location: So. Cal | Nice car. |
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Expert
Posts: 1508
Location: new york | I bought that car from the original owners son! Most paint is original. Its a nice car! Wish I'd never sold it!
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Location: The Mile High City | Wow! That's beautiful! It seems like every Firesweep convertible I see is much more luxurious than my Firedome convertible! This is a gem. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 943
| Gorgeous, super rare car... |
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Location: Parts Unknown | Over twenty 58 Firesweep convertibles are known to survive. About
half that many Firedomes are known to still be extant. Last check, six
Fireflites are documented surviving. I think the number is around ten
Adventurers still with us.
Production for the four models stood at 700, 593, 474, and 82 respectively.
A high percentage of these Firesweep convertibles were painted up in
the white and red like this one. A trait not shared with the more upline
models. Today, we see a lot of these surviving Firesweeps loaded up with
bling equipment they were not built with, giving the impression they were
as (or more) upscale cars than they really were. Firesweeps are Dodges
with some DeSoto body skin and interior. They were built on the Dodge
production lines. Outside of these superficial bits, they are pure Dodge.
As they were originally marketed, and the reason for adding this model
to the DeSoto line, was to add a cheap, bottom-of-the-line model to boost
sales volume. Hard to say how deeply those 700 Firesweep convertibles
ordered cut into orders that might have otherwise been placed for the more
upline models, but history was what it was, and this is what we got. Are
Firesweep convertibles rare ? Compared to Mustangs or Chevys, yeah. If
a person wanted a full size DeSoto ragtop, they will soon discover just how
many Firesweeps turn up as they hunt for the truly unobtainium 126" wheel
base ragtop.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 628
Location: Lubbock, TX | I kind of have to agree with Doc, this is a beautiful car to look at, but as for rarity, I can name 10 other Forward Look cars that are far more rare off the top of my head. I've seen a surprising number of Sweeps in either hardtop or convert form at auctions and people go crazy for them, but the unobtainable models are the Flites and Domes, and no one really cares about the significant differences.
That's my biggest complaint about the Barrett-Jackson craze, it's turned everyone into shallow experts with raging opinions and little true knowledge or understanding.
Not meaning to thread hijack, but I had to throw my thoughts out there.
~Peter
Edited by CaprockClassics 2018-07-30 7:00 AM
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 504
| So what is this car worth today? Is it rust free and mostly original? I love the 58 Desoto's! |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 943
| If 20 are known it's not a common car. 10 cars vs 20 cars they are both unobtainable...
Edited by FINS! 2018-07-30 1:19 PM
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Location: The Mile High City | Doctor DeSoto - 2018-07-29 11:16 PM Production for the four models stood at 700, 593, 474, and 82 respectively. Rare is the day when I get to point out a typo in Doc's posts! 1958 Firedome production was 519 |
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Location: Parts Unknown | When it comes to hard-to-find cars, there is a huge difference
between "super rare" and "not common". No, the 58 Sweep
convertible is not common. But if a person wanted one, they
are out there and for sale with some regularity. If a person
wanted a true DeSoto, with the long wheelbase and DeSoto
nose clip, they'd bore with seeing Firesweeps being offered
before they ever set eyes on one, and chances are it would
not be for sale. 57-58 Mopar ragtops saw pretty small production
numbers, regardless of division or model. But some seemed
to survive in disproprortionetely smaller numbers than others.
The 58 DeSoto wagons are a radical example of this. The big
cars can be counted on one hand. The Firesweeps are not at
all uncommon. |
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Location: The Mile High City | It surprises me that you see 1958 Firedome convertibles (particularly recently) and 1958 Adventurers up for sale much more frequently than 1958 Fireflite convertibles! 1958 Fireflite convertibles seem to be particularly rare as far as survival goes. Who knows, maybe there is a barn full of 'em out there somewhere? |
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Location: Parts Unknown | I have been puzzled by this for decades. My Fireflite more-or-less
fell into my lap as I searched for parts for the Adventurer I was building.
But as I began tracking how many of each model was confirmed to
survive, the 58 Fireflite convertible has a particularly low ratio of
survival. The nearly identical 57 Fireflite survives in relative numbers,
but the 58 does not. It might make sense that a higher number of
Adventurers survive, because they were really special cars from Day
One, like 300's. And it makes sense that if way more of a car, like the
Firesweep, were built, there would be more to start with, and thusly
more would survive ? But the numbers just don't make sense on the
typical survival rate for this one year and model for some reason.
Where is the scratching head emoji ?
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 9672
Location: So. Cal | I know that in the early days, many of these higher end models like fireflites and New Yorkers were scrapped out to fix rusty Adventurers and 300's. I don't really know why they didn't use the more common lower end models to do that, but I have seen it first-hand. Maybe it was because all the door handles and stuff were the same as the sports models so it was easier to swap over?
Edited by Powerflite 2018-08-01 2:31 AM
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