1958 Desoto Firemite 3/8 scale promo car images

These are some images of the 1958 Desoto Firemite I have gathered over the years. they were a factory sponsored gas powered promotional car used by dealers to attract in customers. They have a 2 HP Briggs and Stratton 6B motor and a vacuum formed plastic body. The plastic body is what killed them between the vibration of the motor and the road along with inexperienced drivers tended to kill them. there are only 5 currently known still around and they are very expensive if you can even find one. My website www.jrcentral.com has a lot more information on these and other powered promotionals. these would be considered G0-karts by today's standards not pedal cars but they were never made for speed they were for style! Go to http://www.jrcentral.com for more information on powered promotional cars. And if you are looking for parts to restore one or build one from scratch a list of available parts can be found at http://www.jrcentral.com/resources.html

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Desoto
• Firemite
• go
• kart
• gokart
• pedal
• car
• antique
• scale
• model
• convertible
• Chrysler
• 58
• powercar
• kids
• toy
• jr
• junior

[silverbird58]

do they come with 392 hemi head motor?

[roadkillontheweb]

Chrysler used the 392 in 1958 but Desoto stopped using the Hemi engine in 1957 and the largest was the 345CI 345HP dual quad motor used in the 57 Adventurer series, I used to own two of them a coupe and a convertible.

[ImForwardlook]

Thanks for sharing these! So many pics I haven't seen before...the ultimate in cool! I wonder it would take to make a body for those today...could sell like hotcakes :-) Good luck with the project!

[roadkillontheweb]

When I rebuild my body I will have to make a mold and make another body since the original plastic body is just too fragile. Since the base body is the same as the 57 Desoto and 57-58 Chrysler I am considering making the front and rear bumpers so that owners of the other cars can make one also. Of corse the 57 Desoto would be first since it is so close to the 58

[xNiick]

omg nice! where can u get those? or did u make them yourself?

[roadkillontheweb]

They were made for dealers to use in promotions in 1958 and are very rare today with only 5 known to exsist. The bodies were made of vacuum formed polystyrene and tended to get broken up because of vibration of the motor and sidewalk traffic.

[t9wills]

Back when people cared about there custumers now they whant to rip us off

[monkeeman1966]

t9wills, you are right! Most salesmen back then look like respectful, caring people. Yeah there were a few rotten apples. When I buy anything nowadays from a showroom or something, I always look for the over 55 man. I don't want any hot shot young guy making the sale. Chances are he's the one you have to watch out for.

[mangoconchile1]

I had some typical pedal cars as a kid including an army jeep. If someone had given me this car, I think I would have hyperventilated from excitement.

[1aauto]

It's pretty cool to see the pride that automakers took in building cars back in the day. Cars used to have so much character to them.These go karts are awesome.

[josgaleldo]

ecxelent car the Desoto love it hi there :)

[hamster700]

these were called power cars and they were sold in dealerships manly in the 50 60s along side the real cars the idea was kid wanted to emulate grown up I happen to have or no someone who owns the car when the car was bought it was a wreck and its restored and it was worth it if i sold the car I would let her go for less then $1 million

[fordude60]

Cute little cars!

[gunny426plymouth]

seen these in hemmings! very cool and youd be mugged by the culdesac when you rode in your new firemite!

[016632]

i remember these times i was 10 yrs old and now iam 19

[mcarpioTV]

0:20 the kid in that car has a big grin on his face...he got a hot lady next to him ;) wink wink