Chrysler Company History
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Chrysler that is officially known as Daimler Chrysler Motors Company LLC, is a renowned American automobile manufacturing company. It has been independently producing automobiles since 1925. It was Walter P. Chrysler who founded the company on June 6, 1925, when the Maxwell Motor Company was re-organized into the Chrysler Corporation. In just four years, Chrysler emerged as the third biggest car maker in the US, behind GM and Ford.
Walter Chrysler joined the ailing Maxwell-Chalmers company during the early 1920s to take charge of the troubled operations of the company. In 1923 production work for the Chalmers automobile was stopped. The first Chrysler car was introduced to the world on January 5, 1924, at the New York Automobile Show. At that time, these medium priced cars had new six-cylinders, a seven-bearing crankshaft, carburetor air cleaner, high-compression engine and replaceable oil filter along with four wheel hydraulic brakes. A record sale of 32,000 units was witnessed during the first year of its launch.
The design of the very first Chrysler car was the combined brain work of three talented engineers – Fred M. Zeder, Owen R. Skelton and Carl Breer. Since then Chrysler has created some classic cars like the Air Flow of 1934, the Chrysler 300 of 1950, Dodge Charger of 1967 and Dodge Viper.
Chrysler was going through a financial crisis during the 70’s and early 80’s, due to oil crisis, emission control and the Japanese’s invasion. It regained its profitability in 1982 after the company launched their K-cars. The K-cars were small cars as compared to the GM and Ford’s models. Voyager / Caravan are one of the best selling designed by Chrysler.
In spite of all the success in the automobile industry, Chrysler was somewhat lacking in quality and technology. This is complemented by its merge with Mercedes in 1998, which was actually a takeover by Mercedes. This deal not only transferred its technology and quality control discipline but also played a major role in the development of Pacifica, Crossfire and 300 / Magnum.
Today, Chrysler is an efficient, fast-reacting and creative car maker. Chrysler is currently working on two hybrid vehicles, the Chrysler Aspen hybrid and Dodge Durango hybrid.
