[Chrysler300] 1957 Chrysler vs. DeSoto assembly process puzzle

["keboonstra" <kboonstra@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's a little puzzler regarding Chrysler's assembly process to get you thinking:

I believe it to be pretty well accepted that Chrysler assembled and painted our 300C (and all other Chrysler) front clips as one unit, then they installed them as a single unit on the front of the car after the chassis, including the engine, was all assembled.  Thus the inner fenders are the same color as the body (and the inner fenders are often rusted to the outer fenders).  We have the process all figured out, right?

So now Google up some photos of the engine compartments of 1957 DeSotos.  You'll find that the inner fenders are not painted in body color, but appear instead to be painted in some sort of gray or black.  So they had to have been painted separately from the outer fenders, and then assembled into a complete front clip.  The hood hinges and the assembly bolts are also not painted in body color as on the Chrysler.

There would have to have been a decision to handle the DeSoto front clip painting and assembling process in a different manner from that of the Chrysler.  And it would have required a very different line to do it.

Why would such a difference exist?  Was the DeSoto built in a different plant with its own manufacturing order and making its own assembly process and color decisions?  And does this underhood difference between the Chrysler and the DeSoto process exist for years other than 1957 as well? 

It all seems a bit odd and surprising to me.  Hardly critical stuff, but this sort of trivia is interesting to me.  Anyone out there with the answer?

Keith Boonstra 



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