Made for Export - 1947 De Soto

A Plymouth in disguise, this Mexico-market 1947 De Soto provides a tangible link to its owner's past

Made for Export - 1947 De Soto
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Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

July, 2010 - Words and Photography by Mark J. McCourt

Who among those of us who consider ourselves ''car people'' doesn't hold a soft spot in our hearts for our very first car? Those cars signified our first tastes of freedom, of independence, of adult responsibility. Sometimes our first car was an addition to the family's fleet, or it may have been handed down from our parents, a vehicle already filled with stories and memories. This was the case with Carlos Heiligmann's special 1947 De Soto, a car that maintains a direct, visible link to his family and his youthful years in Mexico.

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If you know older Mopar vehicles, you might find something unusual in this De Soto. Eagle-eyed readers may spot that it uses a Plymouth P-15 body and dashboard, with a De Soto-style grille and badges to set it apart. This car was one of 346,216 P-15-based cars produced in 1947, but it was made specifically for export, with a number of special features that made this particular Diplomat SP-15C--the car's official nomenclature--perfect for its adopted home country of Mexico.

Like Ford and General Motors, the Chrysler Corporation had, for more than a decade, been casting its eyes outside of the United States market in an attempt to broaden its influence and pad the bottom line. Chrysler's export vehicles came from the same plants in America and Canada that built domestic examples. De Soto-badged Dodge trucks were sold in foreign markets from the late 1930s to the late 1950s, while Plymouth had been contributing its smaller Briggs Manufacturing-made bodies since 1937 so that De Soto- and Dodge-branded Diplomats and Kingsways, respectively, could be sold worldwide. This practice would continue until De Soto was discontinued in 1961; some locally assembled De Soto Diplomats and De Soto Rebels, which were re-badged Dodge Darts, were sold in South Africa in the years following the brand's U.S. demise.

The De Soto that Carlos's father, Victor, purchased new on December 7, 1947, in Mexico City was engineered for high altitude and rough road use. Instead of using the U.S.-spec De Soto's 3.9:1 rear-axle gear ratio, the Mexico export version's was steeper, at 4.3:1. Its heavy-duty suspension featured tubular rear shocks protected by sturdy gravel shields. The D6G1 Carter-carbureted 217.7-cu.in. flathead straight-six engine used a 3.25 x 4.375-inch bore and stroke and came from the factory with a 5.5:1 compression ratio, versus the American Plymouth's 6.6:1 compression, to compensate for the potential for poor-quality gasoline. Inside, a De Soto emblem replaced the Plymouth emblem above the dashboard speaker grille, while the speedometer and temperature gauge were calibrated to read in kilometers and degrees Celsius. The car's factory manual, printed in Spanish, is credited to the Chrysler Corporation, Export Division, Detroit, Michigan, E.U.A. The donor Plymouth's "Special DeLuxe" badges remained, inside and out.

''My father was an electrical and mechanical engineer. Working with the Mexican Light and Power Company, he set up the public electrical utilities in Mexico,'' Carlos recalls. ''I remember when he brought the car home in 1947--it was my father's first new car. I was about five, and I was so excited. It was a family affair, and my grandpa and aunts all wanted to see the car because very few people had new cars then.

''We drove the car on family trips, and took it on vacation. When I was very little, I sat between my mother and father in the front seat, and my only view was of the Special DeLuxe button on the radio speaker,'' Carlos remembers. ''It had no air conditioning in the summer, and the heater wasn't the greatest, so during the winter, you froze in the back seat, huddled under blankets.

''My father was a very disciplined man. He kept a lot of notes on the car's condition, writing its important maintenance and repair records in a special book. He wrote to Chrysler for all of the manuals and parts publications--which I still have--but he didn't do the routine maintenance himself. Labor was reasonably priced in Mexico back then, and he took the De Soto to a garage for everything."

The De Soto was still in the Heiligmann household when Carlos came of driving age, and it was in this car, with its three-speed manual gearbox and unassisted steering and drum brakes that he learned to drive. ''My father felt that this old car was big and safe for a new driver, so this is what I drove to high school,'' he explains. "It was a big deal to have a car in those days. I wasn't really interested in it at first, because some of my friends had newer Chevys and Fords, but we had a lot of fun in the De Soto, going on picnics and taking girls on dates. After a while, my father wanted to sell it and move me into something newer that would require less maintenance, but I didn't care about that. This was my car."

Carlos enlisted in the United States Air Force after finishing high school, and the De Soto transported him to Texas, where he was stationed for four years. ''When I was in high school, there was a theft problem in Mexico City. To discourage this, I'd removed the hubcaps, radio and windshield wipers. That was a good choice, because none of these items had gotten damaged, and I put them back on when I moved to the U.S.,'' he says. When he lived in the barracks, he used the car sparingly, keeping it covered and in a public garage.

''When I was in the Air Force, I was trained as a maintenance mechanic. That experience taught me discipline in maintaining and appreciating mechanical equipment, and I learned how the Air Force keeps records on machinery. I started doing the maintenance work on the car myself at this time, and I began keeping records on it. I developed my own routine of preventative maintenance tasks, which I've kept up for more than 40 years.''

Carlos and the De Soto moved to Oklahoma in the mid-1960s, where he began work on his undergraduate degree in engineering at the University of Oklahoma. ''I soon realized that the car was not practical for daily use, because Oklahoma was very hot and the highway speeds were demanding. I bought a 1969 Dodge Coronet as my daily car.''

It was here that he met his future wife, Kathy, who lived in an apartment over the garage where he stored the De Soto. ''We would drive it to go shopping in Oklahoma City, which was 50 miles away,'' he says."We'd take the back roads, and it was fun."

In an effort to improve the SP-15C's driveability, Carlos had hired a friend and his mechanic father to rebuild the engine in the early 1970s; they shaved the cylinder head to raise the compression ratio and advanced the ignition timing, which helped increase the power to the full U.S.-spec 95 horsepower rating. On a whim back in 1975, Carlos removed the dealer-installed oilcloth seat covers and found the pinstriped factory wool upholstery to be in excellent shape. Thirty-five years of being exposed have left it with some fading and a few scuffs, but it remains far nicer today than any interior treated to two decades of carrying around active children and fun-loving teenagers has a right to be. Years of constant use have left visible wear on the window sills, on the rear foot rest and around some of the exterior trim.

The Heiligmann family De Soto made its last drive to Mexico City, from Oklahoma City, in 1973, before Carlos moved to Massachusetts to pursue his career in engineering. The trip to New England was the only time the De Soto was ''transported'' and not actually driven; Carlos had already decided that he was going to keep the car forever. In the years since, it has remained registered and driven on the road every year in the warm months. Keeping a vintage automobile in fine condition hasn't been simple, but Carlos has enjoyed the challenge.

Regarding his preservation techniques, Carlos said: ''I've always kept the car covered or stored indoors. It's now stored in a warm place in our house, and it's always clean and covered. The paint is original, as applied by the De Soto workers. There are some new waxes that would take that paint off completely, so I have to be careful about the paste wax I choose. Instead of polishing the car, I put on very little wax, just enough to keep it protected. The finish fades and gets dull very easily if the car sits out in the sun. I also try to keep it from getting wet, but if it's in the rain, I dry it off right away. If it dries, the water spots make it look like it has a sickness, with white blotches.

''This has been a very straightforward car to take care of. Being a Mopar, it's relatively popular, and easy to get parts for. It's amazing to still find new-old-stock parts; I recently picked up an intake/exhaust manifold as a spare, because these sometime develop cracks. I also got a new ignition coil, still in the original box, and a new distributor. My parts inventory includes a new water pump, a fuel sending unit, distributor points, a spare generator and a starter. If something is not too expensive, I'll buy it. The De Soto is so simple, mechanically, compared to today's cars. I keep spare parts on hand, and I read the manuals. It's not too complicated to keep it running well.''

Being the caretaker of a vintage car has also meant that Carlos has long since mastered some techniques that are unique to older vehicles. ''I keep it greased, and that car has a lot of leather seals that will dry up if they sit. The accelerator pump has one of these seals, and every year, I'll open up the carburetor, take out the pump and soak the seal in oil before putting it back: This keeps it swelled up so there are no leaks. The wheel seals are also leather, so they get a few drops of oil to keep them moist; if I'm installing a new wheel seal, it gets a few days' soak beforehand. Keeping up with these seals means that they last.''

The benefit of Carlos's careful maintenance is that the car's roughly 144,300 kilometers--around 89,664 miles--have been largely trouble-free. ''It's brought us a lot of happiness and enjoyment. I imagine that driving it is like flying an old DC-3,'' Carlos says. "Driving it is totally different from driving a modern car. It has a column shift, and no power steering or brakes. No synchro in first gear means that you have to be careful when you shift into that gear or you'll hear the crunch. Driving it requires a special technique. You always have to anticipate your next move because the brakes are old tech, and they don't stop as quickly as new discs. Parallel parking is a challenge, too; it requires a lot of muscle. But I know this car so well that within 10 seconds of being behind the wheel, it all comes back to me.''

Carlos and Kathy continue to enjoy driving the car to local shows and cruise-ins year after year, and the De Soto will make an appearance in the Preservation Class of the 2010 New England Concours d'Elegance at Stratton Mountain, Vermont, in July. At that event, the car will likely attract plenty of attention and comment. Carlos explains, ''A lot of people are very interested in its history, and want to learn how it's different from the De Sotos that they grew up with. Others will say, 'My family had one just like that.' Some people in the Northeast think that it's a Canadian model, because it's different.

''Owning this car has been a lot of fun. I've met a lot of nice people, it taught me a lot about basic automotive mechanics and it introduced me to the old-car hobby,'' he says. Carlos has ensured that many more people will appreciate and learn from this car in the future, as he has arranged for this rare and special automobile to eventually become part of the permanent collection of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

''Some family members living in Mexico periodically ask if I still have that old car, because they remember it from when we were young... they are amazed that I do. My father would be very surprised and proud to see that this car has lasted so long. I think he would be very happy if he knew that, after all these years, it's turned out all right.''


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