ChryslerThe first Chrysler car was denied entry into the 1924 New York Auto show, however Walter P Chrysler parked his prototype in the lobby so passers by could see, it obviously worked, it became the first affordable car with a 4 wheel hydraulic brakes and a 6 cylinder engine. One year later the Chrysler Corporation was established.
During the 40’s Chrysler supplied allied forces with everything from tanks to aircraft engines to trailer-mounted anti aircraft guns. Chrysler also released the luxury-orientated town and Country just before production was halted in 1942 and was diverted towards war efforts.
Many innovations in Chrysler’s car designed took place during the 1950’s, this included air-cooled brakes, the Hemi-head V8 engine and Hydraglide, which was the industry’s first power steering unit. In 1955 NASCAR officials banned one of Chrysler’s cars the C-300 from sanctioned racing, due to its superior power, due to its 300hp Hemi-head engine.
A new recruit came to Chrysler in the 1960s, Designer Elwood Engel, he was lured from Ford to reshape the Chrysler styling and created the 1963 Chrysler Turbine, also know as the “Englebird”. Chrysler also won first in its class at the 1967 Mobil Economy Run for its Chrysler 300 series.
Chrysler faced a slump in the US auto industry in the 1970’s due to the Middle Eastern oil embargo and the fuel efficiency of Japanese imports. However hope rekindled for US automobiles when Lee Lacocca becomes Chrysler president in 1978.
Chrysler’s first convertible was born in the 1980s, called the LeBaron it struck a chord with open air motorists. The K-Car platform vehicles (LeBaron) are so popular that the company produced a limousine version and a Town and country edition with wood-grain exterior panels.
Chrysler refines luxury with the 1990 Town and Country and defines innovation with 1993's cab-forward design and despite the mid-90s being touted as the end of the convertible; the company introduces the 1996 Sebring.
The Chrysler Corporation merges with European pioneers Daimler-Benz AG to form Daimler Chrysler, a world leader in transportation. 1999 marked 15 years of the Chrysler Minivan and the 75th anniversary of the company. That same year Motor-Trend names the 300M as the "Car of the Year."
Founding and early years
The company was founded by Walter P. Chrysler on June 6, 1925, when the Maxwell Motor Company was re-organized into the Chrysler Corporation.[2]
Walter Chrysler had originally arrived at the ailing Maxwell-Chalmers company in the early 1920s, having been hired to take over and overhaul the company's troubled operations (just after having done a similar rescue job at the Willys car company).
In late 1923 production of the Chalmers automobile was ended. Then in January of 1924 Walter Chrysler launched the well-received Chrysler automobile. The Chrysler was a 6-cylinder automobile, designed to provide customers with an advanced, well-engineered car, but at a more affordable price than they might expect. (Elements of this car are traceable back to a prototype which was under development at Willys at the time that Chrysler was there). The Maxwell automobile was eventually dropped after its 1925 model year run, although in truth the new line of lower-priced 4-cylinder Chryslers which were then introduced for 1926 were basically Maxwells that had been re-engineered and rebranded. It was during this period that Walter Chrysler would assume presidency of the company, with the company ultimately incorporated under the Chrysler name.
Creation of the Plymouth brand
In 1928 the Chrysler Corporation founded the Plymouth brand at the low priced end of the market (essentially by once again re-engineering and rebranding the 4-cylinder models), and it also introduced the DeSoto brand in the medium price field. Subsequently, Chrysler acquired the Dodge Brothers automobile company; all of this was in order to set up a full range of brands similar to that of the General Motors corporation. This process reached its logical conclusion in 1955, when the Imperial was made a brand of its own and Chrysler marketed a GM-like five-brand lineup. Well before then, though, Chrysler Corporation had become noted both for its engineering features as well as its periodic financial crises. By the end of the 1930s, the DeSoto and Dodge divisions would flip-flop spots in the corporate pecking order making the lineup Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, and Imperial.
Chrysler Airflow
In 1934, the company introduced the Chrysler Airflow, featuring an advanced streamlined body which was among the first to be designed according to scientific aerodynamic principles. Chrysler also created the industry's first wind tunnel to develop them. Unfortunately, it was not well accepted by the public, and it was the humble Dodge and Plymouth divisions, which had not been given an Airflow model, which pulled the firm through the Depression years with its conventional but quite popular bodystyles. Plymouth was one of only a few marques that actually increased sales during the cash-strapped thirties. It was during this decade that the company created a formal parts division under the Mopar (Motor Parts) brand, with the result that Chrysler products are still often called Mopars.
The unsuccessful Airflow had a chilling effect on Chrysler styling and marketing, which remained determinedly unadventurous through the 1940s and into the 1950s, with the single exception of the installation of hidden headlights on the very brief production run of the 1942 DeSotos. Engineering advances continued however, and in 1951 the firm introduced the first of a long and famous series of Hemi V8s. In 1955, things brightened after the stodgy post-war styling with the introduction of Virgil Exner's successful Forward Look designs. With the inauguration of the second generation Forward Look cars for 1957, "Torsion-Aire" was introduced. This was not air suspension, but an indirect-acting, torsion-spring front suspension system which drastically reduced unsprung weight and shifted the car's center of gravity downward and rearward, resulting in both a smoother ride and significantly improved handling. However, a rush to production of the 1957 models led to quality-control problems (mostly related to body fit and finish, resulting in major rusting). This, coupled with a national recession, found the company again in recovery mode.
Chrysler is generally considered part of the Big Three, a title that refers to the traditional triumvirate of domestic automakers. The accuracy of this classification is open for debate, as Chrysler joined with Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, to create DaimlerChrysler in the late '90s. But there's no debating the fact that Chrysler has experienced a revival of sorts over the past few years.
Born in 1925, Chrysler Corporation was founded by Walter P. Chrysler, a noted machinist; he'd purchased the Maxwell Motor Corporation of Detroit and used it as the foundation for his new company. The automaker quickly earned a reputation for advanced engineering. In 1928, Chrysler Corporation expanded with the purchase of Dodge and the creation of the DeSoto and Plymouth divisions.
The 1930s saw Chrysler boldly looking toward the future with the introduction of its revolutionary Airflow. Powered by a front-mounted inline eight, the car was one of the first to be designed with aerodynamics in mind, and featured swooping lines and a prominent grille. Perhaps a bit too ahead of its time, the Airflow was a flop with the public. Chrysler was able to survive the lean years of the Depression due to strong sales generated by its entry-level Dodge and Plymouth brands, whose vehicles boasted more traditional designs and much lower price tags.
Chrysler shined postwar. For a period in the late 1940s, it even surpassed Ford as the No. 2 U.S. automaker. The company's storied "Hemi" V8 engine made its debut in 1951. Offering 180 horsepower, it was a significant improvement over Chrysler's previous 135-hp V8. The Hemi engine was meant to trounce the V8 offered by Cadillac, Chrysler's rival, and it kick-started Detroit's horsepower race of the '50s and '60s. The '50s also saw the debut of treasured Chrysler classics like the handsome Town and Country and the sleek 300C.
By 1961, Chrysler had trimmed its line of brands by dropping the DeSoto nameplate. New technologies were also afoot, such as unibody construction (Chrysler was the first of the Big Three to introduce it) and the replacement of generators with alternators for a car's charging system. In the latter half of the '60s, Chrysler was heavily involved with NASCAR and producing performance-oriented cars.
At the same time, however, dark clouds were gathering. As with other domestic automakers, the 1970s proved to be a difficult decade for Chrysler due to the oil crisis, new government regulations and changing consumer tastes. A costly and ineffective overseas expansion further hurt the company's bottom line. By the late '70s, the company was in such financial disarray that it petitioned the government for $1.5 billion in loan guarantees to save it from bankruptcy.
Thanks to impressive public campaigning by then-chairman Lee Iacocca, the debut of the well-received K-car platform and the creation of the modern minivan, sales had improved dramatically by the mid-'80s. The government's loan was paid off seven years early. The picture further brightened in the late 1980s with Chrysler's purchase of American Motors Corporation (which netted the company the Jeep brand) and a joint venture with Mitsubishi known as Diamond Star Motors.
Success continued through the early 1990s. In 1998, German-based Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler to form DaimlerChrysler. At the time, this deal was presented as a merger of equals. But it quickly became apparent that it was more of a purchase, with Daimler being the dominant partner. To Daimler's chagrin, however, Chrysler's financial situation had once again dropped into the red. To counter, cutbacks were made and German technology and engineering applied. In the past few years this remedy has finally borne fruit. Thanks to new models and improved efficiencies, Chrysler is now the healthiest of the Big Three automakers.
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