DeSoto

DeSoto is an American marque of automobiles manufactured and marketed by the DeSoto division of the Chrysler Corporation. The brand was named after the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto.

The brand was founded by Walter Percy Chrysler in 1928 to compete against Oldsmobile, Buick, Studebaker, Mercury etc. in the mid-price automobile market. But soon Chrysler purchased the Dodge Brothers Company to manufacture mid-price cars along with DeSoto. The brand was discontinued in 1961 to be merged into Chrysler Newport brand while Dodge continued to live on today.

Why It Flopped

 * 1) During the late 1950s, the market is already saturated with mid-price car marques such as Ford and Buick, adding further competition to the DeSoto marque.
 * 2) Poor market management: rather than managing the market relationship to specific price points for particular consumers like GM, Chrysler allowed its own divisions to develop products targeting markets covered by its sister divisions. This caused Chrysler's five marques (Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Imperial and Chrysler itself) to compete against each other. putting further stress on the already slow selling DeSoto brand. And the success of the Dodge Dart only made the prospect look even dimmer.
 * 3) * In fact, Chrysler themselves moved from the luxury automobile market to the mid-priced range in the early 1950s with the introduction of their Imperial brand.
 * 4) Another terminating factor is Chrysler's dealer network. Post-WWII Chrysler had a large number of dealers that were duelled with two or more Chrysler makes, (Plymouth–DeSoto and Chrysler–Plymouth relationships are the most common). However, Chrysler attempted to spin Plymouth off into stand-alone dealerships, causing existing dealers to chose the higher-volume Plymouth brand over DeSoto, leaving the marque with a weakened dealer network and fewer outlets to sell its cars.
 * 5) Many consumers showed more interest in low-range Chryslers than in DeSoto, which is why the latter ended up merging into Chrysler Newport.
 * 6) The 1957-58 economy recession in the US, which caused a drastic drop in mid-price car sales, further contributed to DeSotos demise. By an average between 1955 and 1960, Desoto sales had fallen off 83%.