Article content Back in 1924, Walter P. Chrysler thought he’d like to see his name on an automobile, and so he built one. He didn’t actually create the Chrysler Corporation until 1925, but while the company is only 99 years old this year, the cars span a century, and so we’re highlighting important or fascinating models from each decade.
Born in 1875, Chrysler was the son of a train engineer. Always fascinated by machinery, he started with the railway at age 17, becoming a machinist and then a master mechanic; and eventually, superintendent of the Chicago Great Western Railroad. How did Walter Chrysler get into cars? It all started when Walter P.
Chrysler attended the 1907 Chicago Auto Show, liked what he saw, and bought a Locomobile. Despite paying $5,000 for the enormous luxury car – when he could have had a smaller one from a mainstream brand for $600 – he immediately took it apart to see how it worked. Chrysler was also a brilliant businessman .
On the advice of a friend, he joined General Motors, and by 1912 was the president of Buick . From there he went to Willys-Overland, a struggling automaker, and turned it around to profitability. Willys would later build Jeep — and, much later still, the Chrysler Corporation would acquire Jeep, via its purchase of American Motors in 1987.
He was then asked to fix Maxwell, a close-to-bankruptcy automaker in Detroit. He did, in a deal that included basically handing the company over to him. That’s where his hand-picked team of engineers worked in secret on a new model that would be unveiled for 1924.
The 1920s: 1924 Chrysler Six The factory turned out some 32,000 copies of this first Chrysler for 1924. It used a high-compression six-cylinder engine that could reach an impressive-for-its-day 75 mph (120 km/h). Walter Chrysler wanted to debut his namesake car at the New York Auto Show in January, but because it wasn’t yet in full production, show officials said no.
The event was held in a ballroom at a hotel, and so Walter rented the lobby and placed his display there — and everyone attending the show had to walk through that lobby, and so saw the new Chrysler ahead of any other car. The 1930s: 1934 Chrysler Airflow The aerodynamic Airflow is a prized collectible today, but back in its day, it was something of a flop. It wasn’t even supposed to be a Chrysler; it was originally meant only for the company’s DeSoto and Imperial divisions.
But 1934 marked the tenth anniversary of that first Chrysler, and Walter wanted his name on this one, too. It was designed in a wind tunnel, possibly the first U.S.
production car that was; it featured steel-cage construction; and the top-trim Imperial version was the first car with a curved-glass windshield. But its futuristic styling was too much for most buyers, who stayed away. It was DeSoto’s only model that year, and it almost sank the brand.
Fortunately, the Chrysler division offered other conventional models that offset it, and the Airflow was gone after 1937. The 1940s: 1941 Chrysler Town & Country All U.S.
automakers stopped building cars in the mid-1940s to produce supplies for the Second World War. Chrysler’s wartime production included tanks, anti-aircraft guns, air-raid sirens, and nine-cylinder radial aircraft engines. But before all that, it built the Town & Country, its first station wagon.
Early cars used a lot of wood, which was cheaper than steel, but even after trees were no longer a primary component, wooden wagon bodies were offered as a luxury touch. The Town & Country, in six- or nine-passenger configuration, had a steel body with ash frames and mahogany veneer attached to the metal. Chrysler would later use the Town & Country name on its minivan.
The 1950s: 1955 Chrysler 300 The “Beautiful Brute,” as the all-new 300 was dubbed, was built on a modified chassis from the Chrysler New Yorker. It also used the New Yorker’s 331-cubic-inch (5.4L) Hemi V8, but freshly modified to make 300 horsepower.
It was the most powerful production vehicle that year. Chrysler took it to the track, where it ran an average of 92.05 mph (148 km/h) to take the NASCAR Grand National; a flying mile at Daytona Beach of 127 mph (204 km/h); and more than 37 wins overall.
It was officially called the C-300, but Chrysler considered it the “A” and followed it with a series of so-called performance “letter cars” — the 1956 300B; the 1957 300C; and so on for a decade. The C-300 cost $4,100, and 1,725 were built that year. The 1960s: 1965 300L The 1965 300L was the last of the letter cars, although lower-powered trims named simply “300” continued until 1971.
And, as we’ll see in a bit, Chrysler still wasn’t finished with that number. The big deal in 1965 was that all Chrysler models were completely redesigned, and their new styling pulled them firmly ahead of their predecessors. Compared to the 1964 models, they were longer, lower, and sleeker, with a new chassis and longer wheelbase.
More than 200,000 Chrysler cars were sold for 1965, the company’s best year to date, and a 55% increase over 1964. The 1970s: 1975 Chrysler Cordoba Actor Ricardo Montalban’s famous “rich Corinthian leather” ads for the new Cordoba defined the decade. While some claim he never actually said “rich,” he did in at least one advertisement ; in others he said it was “soft Corinthian leather.
” That said, Corinthian leather didn’t actually exist, but was a name made up by the ad agency. Nevertheless, everybody knew the slogan. The Cordoba was a two-door hardtop, carrying a 318-cubic-inch (5.
2L) V8 and in a single luxury-loaded trim. The U.S.
was just getting over the 1973 and 1974 oil crisis , when gasoline prices skyrocketed and drivers wanted small, fuel-efficient cars. All Chryslers that year had V8 engines and so sales suffered, but enough buyers wanted their butts on Corinthian leather that the Cordoba’s 150,000-plus units made up 60% of overall sales. The 1980s: 1982 Chrysler LeBaron Convertible Convertibles were having a tough time in the 1970s.
More and more vehicles came with air conditioning instead; it was easy to break into soft-roof cars; and the U.S. government was considering tighter rollover safety standards.
One by one they fell, until the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado was advertised as the “last American convertible.” The Chrysler Corporation had almost folded, saved by a US$1.5-billion federal loan guarantee that was paid back on early on the strength of the new “ K-Cars ,” front-wheel-drive compacts that included the Plymouth Reliant, Dodge Aries, and Chrysler LeBaron (and, shortly after, the new minivan ).
In 1982, a number of LeBaron coupes were sent from the factory to an aftermarket company in Michigan that turned them into convertibles that buyers quickly snapped up. With that, several speculators who’d bought Eldorados figuring they’d be priceless then sued Cadillac because they no longer had the “last convertibles,” but the case was thrown out of court. Other automakers quickly followed Chrysler’s lead and reinstated drop-tops as well — including the new-for-1984 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz.
The 1990s: 1993 Chrysler Concorde For 1993, the Chrysler Concorde, Dodge Intrepid, and Eagle Vision featured the automaker’s new “cab-forward” design. It put the cabin farther ahead on the chassis, increasing interior space without stretching the car’s overall dimensions. These were built in Ontario, and while the Dodge version was the best-seller, the Concorde moved a respectable 48,000-plus copies that year.
It would later be joined by the larger and more luxurious cab-forward Chrysler New Yorker and LHS sedans, and in a nod to history, the front-wheel-drive Chrysler 300M. The 2000s: 2005 Chrysler 300 The all-new “LX” cars – the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Magnum, and later the Challenger – rocked the domestic industry when they debuted as full-size models with rear-wheel-drive. Chrysler had merged with Daimler and the cars included some Mercedes-Benz engineering and components.
The 300 came with a V6 or as the 300C with 5.7L Hemi V8, and then later as an SRT8 with 6.1L Hemi V8 cranking out 425 horsepower.
It was a hit right out of the box, with more than 144,000 copies leaving the factory that first year, making it the top seller of the three LX models by a considerable margin. The 2010s: 2010 Chrysler PT Cruiser Okay, so 2010 was the PT Cruiser’s last year, having been introduced for 2001, but we’ll give that decade to the 300. Built in Mexico and Austria, the PT Cruiser shared elements of the Neon subcompact and a concept car called the Pronto Cruizer.
Its styling was penned by designer Bryan Nesbitt, who later moved to General Motors and created the equally-retro Chevrolet HHR. Offered as a hatchback or convertible, the PT Cruiser was possibly the only car that huge numbers of people bought brand-new and then immediately customized right out of the box — anything from stick-on aftermarket accessories to radical paint jobs and body modifications. There were even car shows dedicated solely to them, including a couple that were organized by Chrysler, one of them during the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit.
The 2020s: 2024 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid We’re once again stretching back a bit, as the Chrysler Pacifica and Pacifica Hybrid minivan debuted for 2017, but as of 2024, it’s the only product in the automaker’s lineup. It replaced the Town & Country minivan – there’s that name again – with an all-new platform and in gas or hybrid. It’s actually a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), rated for 51 km (32 miles) on electricity alone after it’s been plugged in and charged.
With only one vehicle right now, it’ll be interesting to see where Chrysler goes in the future. But one thing’s for sure: this company sure has had one heck of a past..
