Chrysler

Auburn Hills, Michigan, June 10, 2009.
Chrysler Group LLC prepares to begin operations, the new company formed in alliance with Fiat announced an organizational restructuring to focus on the Chrysler, Jeep®, Dodge and Mopar® brands. The new leaner, flatter structure is intended to restore brand promise and dealer confidence. All appointments are effective immediately.

Auburn Hills, Mich., April 30, 2009.
Chrysler LLC today announced that, as a result of the comprehensive restructuring plan agreed to by many of its stakeholders, it has reached an agreement in principle to establish a global strategic alliance with Fiat SpA to form a vibrant new company. It will allow Chrysler and Fiat to fully optimize their respective manufacturing footprints and the global supplier base, while providing each with access to additional markets.

Chrysler Brand Heritage Chronology.
The company was formed by Walter Percy Chrysler on June 6, 1925, with the remaining assets of Maxwell Motor Company.

1875-1911.
Kansas-born Walter Chrysler, son of a locomotive engineer, was connected to the transportation industries throughout his life. His love of machinery prompted him to forsake a college education for a machinists apprenticeship, and his early career comprised numerous mechanical jobs in the railroad industry.

1912-1920.
In 1912, Chrysler joined General Motors as manager of its Buick manufacturing plant, becoming president of the Buick division four years later. After parting ways with GM in 1919, Chrysler began a second career as a doctor of ailing automakers, strengthening first Willys-Overland, then the Maxwell Motor Corporation.

1920-1924.
Chrysler teamed up with three ex-Studebaker engineers, Fred Zeder, Owen Skelton and Carl Breer, to design a revolutionary new car. They defined what the products of the Chrysler brand would be  affordable luxury vehicles known for innovative, top-flight engineering.

1924.
The first was the 1924 Chrysler Six, an all-new car priced at $1,565 that featured two significant innovations  a light, powerful, high-compression six-cylinder engine and the first use of four-wheel hydraulic brakes in a moderately priced vehicle. The well-equipped Chrysler Six also featured aluminum pistons, replaceable oil and air filters, full-pressure lubrication, tubular front axles, shock absorbers and indirect interior lighting.

1925.
After securing a $5,000,000 loan to start production, Chrysler sold over 32,000 units of the Chrysler Six in its first year. The Maxwell company soon had a new name: Chrysler Corporation. In 1925, the firm boasted more than 3,800 dealers, sold over 100,000 cars and ranked fifth in the industry.

1925-1930.
Some of Chryslers early high-performance, high-style cars startled industry observers and customers alike, but mid-range pricing added value and assured the success of the brand. Model numbers told customers how fast each Chrysler would go; the Chrysler 72, for example, featured an optional "Red-Head" engine for better pickup and hill climbing.

Chryslers would also perform commendably in other period racing venues, winning the 1925 1,000-mile Stock Car Speed Trial at Los Angeles and placing second, third and sixth at the Belgian Twenty-Four Hour Grand Prix of 1928. They also did well in endurance competition, completing a 1926 Kansas City-Denver test at an average speed of 51.8 mph and a 1927 New York-Los Angeles round-trip speed run at an average speed of 40.2 mph.

The 1928 acquisition of Dodge Brothers made Chrysler the third of Detroits Big Three automakers, and Walter Chrysler one of the most successful industrialists of his generation.

1930-1935.
Within a decade of its founding, Chrysler Corporations leadership in innovation had earned for it the label of Detroits engineering company. Chryslers list of early automotive firsts included Floating Power (a new method of mounting engines to isolate vibration), replaceable oil filters, downdraft carburetors and one-piece curved windshields.

Chrysler entered a higher level of competition with its richly appointed Imperial series. With a custom-built body from LeBaron or Briggs, a 145-inch-wheelbase chassis, a 125-horsepower engine and a price tag of $3,145, a typical Imperial of the early 1930s rivaled a Duesenberg in style, but cost only about a third as much!

In 1934, Chrysler, with advice from Orville Wright, built a wind tunnel to test body shapes that led to the first unit-body, aerodynamic car, the Airflow. The idea came from Carl Breer after he tested conventional car shapes in a wind tunnel and found they registered much less drag tail first.

Chryslers Airflow "streamliner" was dramatic and ahead of its time, the fluid design and pioneering unit-body construction offered improved handing and passenger comfort in a vehicle unlike any seen before.

The Chrysler Airflow also featured recessed headlights, a low step-up height, a standard in-line eight-cylinder engine, automatic overdrive and good gas mileage (posting 21.4 miles per gallon on a coast-to-coast test trip). Unfortunately for Chrysler, the Airflow was a bit too different for most. Even though its design was soon widely copied, this first truly streamlined car was not a sales success.

1936-1937.
Less-than-spectacular sales led to stronger promotion of cars like the $925 DeLuxe Eight over the slow-selling, $1,400 Airflow, and to more conservative Chrysler styling.

1938-1941.
A new brand-defining model appeared: the New York Special, soon recast as the richly appointed Chrysler New Yorker. Its longstanding popularity would eventually make it Americas longest-running automobile nameplate (1938-1996).

"Fluid Drive" became known as another of Chryslers significant engineering innovations, it was an "almost automatic" transmission that virtually eliminated shifting. Others included Superfinish to reduce wear on contacting metal surfaces and Oilite self-lubricating bearings.

Gaining widespread notice in 1940, the Chrysler Thunderbolt show car was a huge two-seater with a retractable steel roof and streamlined cladding front to rear. Chrysler turned even more heads on Memorial Day that year when its exotic Newport Phaeton, one of only five built by LeBaron, served as pace car at the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.

The most striking production-model Chrysler of the prewar years was the 1941-42 Town & Country, a barrelback sedan expanded into an aerodynamic station wagon and trimmed with ash-and-mahogany side panels, the companys elegant entry into autobuildings woody era.

1942-1945.
All civilian car production stopped for the duration of World War II. Chrysler was eighth among all manufacturers in producing materials for the war effort.

1946-1954.
When peacetime returned, Chrysler and other automakers rushed back into production with new cars retaining many of the solid, reassuring features of the prewar models, such as the ash-and-mahogany trim of the new 1946 Chrysler Town & Country sedans and convertibles that succeed the pre-war T&C station wagons.

While many customers, especially Hollywood stars, loved those postwar woodies, many others were ready for a change, not just from the style of Town & Country, but from all "high-and-wide" models that harkened back to prewar styles. But Chrysler stood steadfastly by its tall, stolid cars. Through the early '50s, it built "comforting" large cars; when Chryslers did eventually get a bit longer and lower, styling visibly trailed most rivals in the market.

The first indication of changing times at Chrysler came with the 1951 development, and enthusiastic reception, of the authoritative, hemispheric-head V-8 engine. The soon-to-be legendary HEMI combined better combustion, higher compression and lower heat loss to create much more horsepower than previous V-8s. Close behind was the fully automatic Powerflite transmission.

Chrysler then reaffirmed its engineering reputation by commissioning a revolutionary gas turbine engine program. This 20-year campaign to apply an aircraft engine turbine's smooth power and low maintenance requirements to automobiles became part of the Chrysler brand's folklore.

In 1949, Chrysler hired Studebaker designer Virgil Exner to head an advanced styling section, a first step toward realigning the companys design priorities. Exner enlisted the aid of Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Ghia to began building a remarkable series of so-called "idea cars," like the 1951 Chrysler K-310 five-passenger sport coupe, the 1952 C-200, which featured the "gunsight" taillight design later used on Imperials, and the 1953 Chrysler D'Elegance, a three-passenger sport coupe with hand-sewn, black-and-yellow leather upholstery and matching luggage.

The most extraordinary car in this series was the Chrysler Norseman, featuring cantilevered arches to support a roof without A pillars, all-aluminum body panels and a power-operated, 12-square-foot panel of glass that slid forward to expose the rear seat to the sky. Shipped to America by Ghia, the Norseman sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on the ill-fated Italian steamship Andrea Doria.

1955-1962.
Exner revived Chrysler production car design with the sleek, sculptured Forward Look designs of 1955 that transformed the product line overnight. The Forward Look flagship was the 1955 Chrysler 300, a striking automobile that combined smooth styling with brawny HEMI power. The 300, arguably the first muscle car, became a legend on and off the race track and set records throughout the 1950s, including a 143-mph performance at Daytona Beach.

As the Fifties progressed, Chrysler products began to sprout distinctive tailfins, ostensibly to improve handling and stability above 70 miles per hour. The 1957 Chrysler brand standard-bearer, the 300C, was equipped with a standard 392-cubic-inch, 375-horsepower HEMI, two four-barrel carburetors, a high-output camshaft, Torsion-Aire suspension and the new Torqueflite transmission, making it the fastest, most powerful production car built in America that year and earning it the appellation beautiful brute.

Throughout the postwar years, Chrysler engineering leadership paced new styling advances. The company's engineering "firsts" from that era include the first "safety cushion dashboard, the famous Chrysler push-button transmission (which became an icon of the '50s), power steering, torsion-bar suspension and the first practical alternator (introduced in 1960, it proved so successful it became standard equipment just one year later).

1963-1970.
Chrysler entered the second phase of its gas turbine project, completing 50 smartly styled, Ghia-designed prototypes for testing by 200 customers. With its whooshing jet-aircraft sound, distinctive exterior and a space-age interior filled with a massive console, the Chrysler Turbine Car would not be confused with any other vehicle. But the realities of poor mileage [11.5 mpg] and high production costs brought the project to a quiet close.

Chrysler products evolved gracefully through '60s, fins disappeared, large cars became more refined, and ads for the 1963 New Yorker promised that there were "no junior editions to compromise your investment." The 1963 Chrysler 300-J maintained the brands style-plus-speed image with standard leather interiors, heavy-duty torsion bars and Ram induction manifolds; a special-edition Pace Setter convertible version started the Indianapolis 500.

By 1965, Chrysler sales had increased 65 percent and the brand moved from 11th to ninth place in national rankings. Models ranged from the "affordable luxury" of the Newport line (with no fewer than 376 trim and color combinations), through the high-line New Yorker to the sporty 300 with its 440-cubic-inch V-8 engine.

1971-1979.
Following a decade of considerable success, Chrysler made an ill-fated, $450 million investment in new large cars just before the 1973 oil embargo. Public demand quickly turned from traditional large cars to mid-size and smaller vehicles, forcing Chrysler and its competitors to make expensive changes to their product lineups.

One design highlight in Chrysler's rapidly evolving 1970s lineup was the Cordoba, a 115-inch-wheelbase coupe billed as "Chrysler's new small car." With its Jaguar-like front end, formal roofline and one-of-a-kind rectangular taillamps, it became one of the eras most memorable cars, along with the TV commercials featuring actor Ricardo Montalban extolling the virtues of its rich Corinthian leather interior. Cordobas sold better than all other Chrysler models combined, inspiring other new, "smaller" Chrysler designs, like the LeBaron Medallion coupe.

1980-1987.
In 1980, Chrysler, deep in its greatest financial crisis, turned to the all-new K-Car for salvation. While some called it "the metal brick," in many ways the functional, compact, front-wheel-drive K-Car was just the right car for the times.

This automotive "back to basics" era peaked with the 1984 introduction of the minivan. Chrysler Corporation's most practical vehicle proved to be its most popular and eventually led to the revival of the Chrysler Town & Country nameplate on an upmarket version.

The design highlight for the Chrysler brand during this period was unquestionably the LeBaron convertible, which reintroduced the convertible to the American market and enjoyed a nine-year run as it brought style and excitement back to the brand.

1988-1998.
In the late 1980s, new leadership at Chrysler, determined to return the brand to its roots of engineering and design excellence, decided to create an entirely new line of "Euro-Japanese-ethic" cars, and developed platform teams to get the job done quickly and affordably. The new product philosophy was reflected in the development of concept cars like the 1988 Portofino and the 1989 Millenium.

Chrysler's renaissance began in earnest with the mid-size 1993 Concorde sedan, which was quickly followed by the full-size LHS and Chrysler 300M, the smaller Cirrus sedan, the companion Sebring luxury sports coupe and the separate Sebring convertible, and the next-generation Town & Country minivan.

1998-2007.
Since the DaimlerChrysler merger in 1998, still more outstanding Chrysler vehicles have been developed, including the new Chrysler 300C, the PT Cruiser and PT Cruiser convertible, the all-new Sebring sedan and Sebring convertible, the Pacifica crossover, the latest versions of the Town & Country minivan and the Crossfire sports car.

More than 80 years after the creation of the company, each of these vehicles continues to personify Walter P. Chryslers original vision for the brand bearing his name: superb engineering, standout design and fun-to-drive performance, all at an affordable price.

2007
Chrysler is sold to Cerberus.

2009.
On June 10, Chrysler Group LLC prepares to begin operations, the new company formed in alliance with Fiat announced an organizational restructuring to focus on the Chrysler, Jeep®, Dodge and Mopar® brands. The new leaner, flatter structure is intended to restore brand promise and dealer confidence. All appointments are effective immediately.

(source: Chrysler).

In 1963, the company had switched over to a star design which became known as the Pentastar and was extensively used on dealer signage, advertisements, and promotional brochures. Contrary to popular belief, it was not designed to symbolize the five divisions of the corporation at the time, Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler, and Imperial. By 1963 there were two car divisions in the United States, Chrysler-Plymouth and Dodge. As well there were over a dozen other divisions in the Chrysler Corporation family and management were after a symbol that all divisions could use.

Then Chrysler head, Lynn Townsend, was looking for a symbol that could be used by all divisions, on packaging, stationery, signage, advertising, etc. He wanted something that would be universally recognizable as "Chrysler" to anyone who saw it, from any perspective, from any culture. Chrysler's trademark symbol, the pentastar, was simple and easily recognizable from any perspective, even in motion on revolving signs. The symbol also facilitated Chrysler's expansion in the international market by removing the need to translate any text that is commonly used on logos.

Thus all divisions of Chrysler adopted the Pentastar. All car brands (Valiant, Plymouth, Dodge, Chrysler, Imperial, Hillman, Humber, Sunbeam, Singer, Simca), truck brands (Fargo, DeSoto, Dodge, Commer, Karrier), and all the other Chrysler divisions (air conditioning systems, heating, industrial engines, marine engines, outboard motors, boats, transmissions, four wheel drive systems, powdered metal products, adhesives, chemical products, plastics, electronics, tanks, missiles) and services (leasing and finance) were identified by the Pentastar. It united the firm's various products and services in the public's eye as no other auto firm has done.

The Pentastar appeared consistently but inconspicuously on the lower passenger-side fender of all Chrysler products, including foreign brands, until the early 1980s. At that point it was adapted to appear in such forms as trunk emblems and hood ornaments, replacing other designs that had been used by Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler and had in some cases identfied individual models, such as the Chrysler New Yorker. It was placed on the passenger-side fender so it could be viewed by passers-by, a subtle method of getting the symbol ingrained in the public's mind. A nameplate has to be read, but a symbol is recognizable even to the illiterate. Thus North American and French cars had the Pentastar on the right fender and British on the left.

By 1993, Chrysler started to phase out the Pentastar, with Dodge getting its own "Ram" logo, and by 1995, Chrysler got a ribbon symbol and Plymouth got a sailboat logo. The Pentastar's last badging appearance was on the steering wheel and keys of the Chrysler minivans produced from 1996 through 2000.

Currently the only remaining traces of this motif are a large, star-shaped window at DaimlerChrysler's American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and Pentastar Aviation, a former DaimlerChrysler subsidiary which reverted to its original name after being purchased, ironically, by a member of the Ford family. It is also likely that many dealerships still have signage and other traces still visually apparent to the Pentastar. Today, glass on Chrysler Group cars and trucks still have the Pentastar on them, however, its days appear to be numbered.

In 1928 Chrysler founded the Plymouth brand at the low end, the DeSoto brand at the low-medium end and purchased 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 and 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.

In the 1930s, 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. 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 questionable designs of the 1953 and 1954 Chryslers with the introduction of Virgil Exner's successful Forward Look style. With these cars, Chrysler seized the industry's design leadership and produced several genuine classics, most notably the 1956 Plymouth Fury and the 1957 Chrysler 300C. With the inauguration of the second generation Forward Look cars for 1957, Torshion-Aire was introduced. This was not air suspension, but an indirect-acting-torsion-spring 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 led to quality-control problems (mostly related to body fitment and rust), and coupled with a national recession, soon the company was once again in financial recovery mode.

As the 1960s opened, the firm made both good and bad moves. In 1960, Chrysler introduced unibody construction in its cars, the first to offer it of the Big Three, across the board, excepting the Imperial. This gave the body more rigidity and less rattles and would soon become an industry standard. Its new compact line, the Valiant, opened strong and continued to gain market share for well over a decade. Valiant was introduced as a division of its own but would become adopted by Plymouth in 1961. Alternators would replace generators in the 1960 Valiant and then all of the 1961 models as standard equipment, an industry first. The DeSoto marque was axed after the introduction of the 1961 models due in part to the broad array of the Dodge lines being marketed. Plymouth would also suffer in the long run for Dodge creeping into Plymouth's price range. An ill-advised downsizing of the full-size Dodge and Plymouth lines in 1962 hurt sales and profitability for several years.

In April 1964, the Plymouth Barracuda, which was technically a Valiant sub-series, was introduced. The huge glass rear window gave the impression of a hatchback with its "love-it-or-hate-it" styling. Beating the Ford Mustang to the market by almost two weeks, it could be argued that the Barracuda was really the first pony car. However, unlike the Mustang, it did not rob sales of other division's models. In spite of better build quality than the Mustang, the Mustang still outsold the Barracuda 10-to-1 between April 1964 and August 1965.

In 1966, Chrysler expanded into Europe, by taking over the British Rootes Group, and Simca of France to form Chrysler Europe. The former purchase unfortunately turned out to be a major mistake for the company, inheriting a major industrial relations problem which afflicted the British motor industry at the time, coupled to the archaic factories and outdated product range that Rootes manufactured. Chrysler retired all of the Rootes marques in favor of the Chrysler name. The Simca division was more successful, but in the end the various problems were overwhelming and the firm gained little from these ventures.

More successfully, at this same time the company helped create the muscle car market in the U.S., first by producing a street version of its Hemi racing engine and then by introducing a legendary string of affordable but high-performance vehicles such as the Plymouth GTX, Plymouth Road Runner, and Dodge Charger. The racing success of several of these models on the NASCAR circuit burnished the company's reputation for engineering.

The 1970s brought both success and crisis. The aging but stalwart compacts saw a rush of sales as demand for smaller cars crested after the first gas crisis of 1973. However, an expensive investment in an all-new full-size lineup went largely to waste as the new 1974 vehicles appeared almost precisely as gasoline prices reached a peak and large-car sales collapsed; that same year marked the end of Barracuda production - 10 years to the day. At mid-decade, the company scored a conspicuous success with its first entry in the personal luxury car market, the Chrysler Cordoba. However, the introduction of the Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare twins in 1976 did not repeat the success of the discontinued Valiant/Dodge Dart line, and the company had delayed in producing an entry in the now all-important subcompact market. Problems were mutliplying abroad as well, as Chrysler Europe essentially collapsed in 1977. It was offloaded to Peugeot the following year, ironically just after having helped design the new Plymouth Horizon and Dodge Omni, on which the increasingly-desperate company was pinning its hopes. Shortly thereafter, Chrysler Australia, which was now producing a rebadged Japanese Mitsubishi Galant, was sold to Mitsubishi Motors. The subcompact Horizon was just beginning to reach the U.S. market when the second gas crisis struck, devastating sales of Chrysler's larger cars and trucks, and the company now had no strong compact line to fall back on.

In desperation, the Chrysler Corporation on September 7, 1979 petitioned the United States government for US$1 billion in loan guarantees to avoid bankruptcy. At the same time, Lee Iacocca, a former Ford executive, was brought in to take the position of CEO, and proved a capable public spokesman for the firm. A somewhat reluctant Congress authorized the guarantees, prodded by Chrysler workers and dealers in every congressional district who feared the loss of their livelihoods. With such help and a few innovative cars (such as the K-car platform), especially the invention of the minivan concept, a market where Chrysler brands are still important, Chrysler avoided bankruptcy and slowly fought its way back up. By the early 1980s, the loans were being repaid at a brisk pace and new models based on the K-car platform were selling well. A joint venture with Mitsubishi called Diamond Star Motors strengthened the company's hand in the small-car market. The acquisition of AMC by Chrysler in 1987, mostly for its Jeep brand, bolstered the firm further, although Chrysler was still the weakest of the Big Three American auto makers.

In the early 1990s, Chrysler made its first tentative steps back into Europe, setting up car production in Austria, and beginning right-hand drive manufacture of certain Jeep models in a 1993 return to the UK market. The continuing popularity of Jeep, bold new models for the domestic market such as the Dodge Ram pickup, Dodge Viper sports car, and Plymouth Prowler hot rod, and new "cab forward" front wheel drive sedans put the company in a strong position as the decade waned.

The original Chrysler logo, which vanished after 1954 from all but 1955-1956 Windsors, C300s, and 300Bs with manual transmissions*, and reappeared in 1994, is a rendition of a wax seal complete with ribbon affixed at the lower right. The thunderbolts above and below the name are actually "Z"s, a tribute to the prototype built before Chrysler took over Maxwell, which took the name "Zeder" from chief engineer Fred Zeder. (At the time, Chrysler was trying to keep development of the new car and his involvement in it a secret, probably still upset about the loss of the car that was supposed to be the first Chrysler. This car design was sold to Billy Durant as a liquidated asset in the Willys-Overland bankruptcy; Durant eventually built this car under the Flint name.)

From 1955 to the early 1980s, various stylized coats of arms appeared as Chrysler logos, none of which are believed to be the Chrysler (originally Kreussler) family crest. Lions also turned up in Chrysler emblems from 1955-1961, during which time Chrysler engines bore names such as "Golden Lion 413". Crowns are another recurring theme, fitting for a make with model names such as Royal, Windsor and Imperial.

* The stick cars kept the 1953-1954 steering column as well as the gearshift.

(source: Allpar)