I always thought so far that DeSoto Diplomat/Dodge Kingsway line was offered
for sale outside the US as the only Chrysler product in a given country.
Well, it seems I was wrong. The '54 to '58 Chrysler bulletins I bought in
Belgium had every year an issue which presented the new line to the dealers.
Each year the DeSoto Diplomat was presented as a unique brand aside the
others five. It was not presented within the DeSoto range, even though it
bears the same name ! It meant you could buy in Belgium a DeSoto Diplomat or
a Plymouth, which were basically the same cars.
It's funny because everyone could see on those bulletins that it was a
DeSoto front clip on a Plymouth, even the customer. The customers and the
dealers must have thought that Chrysler was acting loony ...
The key there was the grouping of brands within the network. Even for a
small market and a small country such as Belgium, the network was divided
into Chrysler-Plymouth outlets and Dodge-DeSoto outlets.
What they did for selling cars ...
Vincent Van Humbeeck (France, 120 miles north of Paris)
'58 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe
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