De Soto was at least two decades ahead of its time. Toss in bad PR, and limited advertising, and it was bound for a limited production. But the real end to the series was the economic downturn of the late 1950s. I wouldn’t call it a real recession...but things slowed down for a year or two, and car sales lagged.
My dad bought one in 1956 I think....pink and gunmetal grey two tone! Had a pushbutton transmission....I’ll say one thing, everyone stared at it as we drove by.
DeSoto was no more ahead or behind the times than parent Chrysler. The Airflow was a radically advanced design available first and foremost as a Chrysler but also as a DeSoto. It failed because it was too different. Parent Chrysler learned a lesson there, learned it too well, proceeding to produce very conservative cars, well engineered but almost all dull from a styling standpoint, right through to the mid-fifties as a result. From that point, DeSoto was arguably the prettier brand in the Chrysler stable, not given quite to the extreme of excesses in an excessive era. What killed it was the late fifties recession, never recovered. Think of DeSoto as being Chrysler’s Oldsmobile, it was discontinued in order to free up resources to shore up the remaining four brands. Yes, four, Imperial had not been rolled into Chrysler yet, at that point.