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 WSJ My Ride: Christina Park's 1958 Firesweep Sportsman SedanJump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [50 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
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Lancer Mike |
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     Location: The Mile High City | A couple of weeks ago, Christina Park and her 1958 De Soto were featured in My Ride. Pretty cool!
(WSJ Christina Park Article 032424.jpg) Attachments ----------------  WSJ Christina Park Article 032424.jpg (230KB - 22 downloads) | ||
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| firedome |
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Expert Posts: 3155  Location: NY & VT | |||
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| 56D500boy |
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Expert 5K+ Posts: 9910 Location: Lower Mainland BC | . Anybody with a Wall Street Journal who could do a screen capture and post it? More than just this: (ChristinaParks57FiresweepWallStreetJournal.jpg) Attachments ---------------- ChristinaParks57FiresweepWallStreetJournal.jpg (114KB - 18 downloads) | ||
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| 56D500boy |
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Expert 5K+ Posts: 9910 Location: Lower Mainland BC | . Gerard W. was nice enough to send me the text of WSJ article: "Chrome, Sweet Chrome: The 1958 Classic That Won Her Heart Christina Park fixed up her DeSoto Firesweep Sportsman after finding it at an estate sale Chrome, Sweet Chrome: The 1958 Classic That Won Her Heart Christina Park fixed up her DeSoto Firesweep Sportsman after finding it at an estate sale Christina Park fell in love with DeSotos at an early age, but few remember the cars that were only produced from model years 1929 to 1961. By A.J. Baime | Photographs by Niki Williams for The Wall Street Journal March 24, 2024 8:00 am ET Christina Park, 24, a genetic counseling 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 colors. This DeSoto was all of that. I fell in love with it instantly, and, ever since, DeSotos have been close to my heart. ‘It is almost always the only DeSoto at a car show,’ says Park of her 1958 Firesweep. 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 colors were beautiful, and the car was similar to the DeSoto I had fallen in love with years earlier. When Park started working on this car in 2016, the engine hoses and belts cracked ‘like pretzels,’ she says. 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. Park with a DeSoto pedal car at a car show, when she was roughly age 4. These days she drives a real DeSoto, as does her boyfriend, David Frank. 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. Park has taken her Firesweep to the national DeSoto convention twice. 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." Thanks Gerry.  Edited by 56D500boy 2024-04-15 8:09 PM | ||
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