What if: 1965 DeSoto

I once posted a sketch of a "what if cars" who was inspired from the "What if cars" site [link] with a 1959 2-door Chevy Nomad wagon [link] if Chevy had continued the concept of the Nomad wagon for 1959.

Now, I saw the "what if car" of a 1962 DeSoto [link] as well as an idea then car designer Don Kopka planned for a 1962 DeSoto [link] and a proposal of a "DeSoto Valiant" rendering from a old issue of Motor Trend magazine posted at the Forward Look forum [link] We knew then Chrysler cancelled the DeSoto division in 1960 after the few 1961 models was launched but in South Africa, the Dodge Dart/Polara continued briefly as a rebadged DeSoto (you can view a scan of it on the Forward Look link then I mentionned earlier) and if you're curious there some scans of what the 1962 Plymouth should had looked [link] instead of the plucked chicken then Exner was forced to do, here the current 1962 Plymouth Belvedere [link]

Now I imagined a sketch of how a 1965 DeSoto would had looked, I tried to keep the 6-tailights vertical but I imagined stacked headlights like Plymouth, Ford and Pontiac got with a updated "tooty tooth" grille. Here it is.

I saw this picture of a 1965 Chrysler New Yorker 6-windows 4-door sedan at [link] and it's interesting to note then the roofline is similar to the proposed 1962 DeSoto then Don Kopka did. Kopka left Chrysler to work at Ford (and ironically Elwood Engel entered at Chrysler in 1961 and worked previously at Ford), after then former Ford's head of design, Georges Walker was disseapointed then the Ford board chosen Georges Bordinat instead of one of his proteges Engel and Joe Oros, Walker lobbyed Lynn Townsend (then president of Chrysler) to hire one of his proteges who replaced Virgil Exner. (Sources, various articles of the magazine "Collectible Automobile" by Jeffrey Godshall, Richard Langworth, Michael Lamm, Kit Foster, etc... and the website "Ate up with Motor" [link] Jalopnik [link] Hemmings blog [link] )