History of Chrysler

The history of Chrysler involves engineering innovations, high finance, wide alternations of profits and losses, various mergers and acquisitions, and multinationalization. Chrysler, a large automobile manufacturer, was founded in the 1920s and continues under the name Stellantis North America.

Chrysler was founded by Walter Chrysler on June 6, 1925, when the Maxwell Motor Company (est. 1904) was re-organized into the Chrysler Corporation.

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 a similar rescue job at the Willys car company.

In late 1923, production of the Chalmers automobile was ended.

Then in January 1924, Walter Chrysler launched an eponymous automobile. The Chrysler 70 (also called the B-70) was a 6-cylinder automobile, designed to provide customers with an advanced, well-engineered car at a more affordable price than they might expect. Elements of this car are traceable back to a prototype which had been under development at Willys at the time Chrysler was there.

The original 1924 Chrysler included a carburetor air filter, high-compression engine, full pressure lubrication inside the engine, and an oil filter, at a time when most autos came without all these features. Among the innovations in its early years would be the first practical mass-produced four-wheel hydraulic brakes, a system nearly completely engineered by Chrysler with patents assigned to Lockheed. Chrysler pioneered rubber engine mounts to reduce vibration; Oilite bearings; and superfinishing for shafts.

Chrysler also developed a road wheel with a ridged rim, designed to keep a deflated tire from flying off the wheel. This safety wheel was eventually adopted by the auto industry worldwide.

Following the introduction of the Chrysler, the Maxwell marque was dropped after the 1925 model year. The new, lower-priced 4-cylinder Chrysler introduced for 1926 year was a badge-engineered Maxwell. The advanced engineering and testing that went into Chrysler Corporation cars helped to push the company to the second-place position in U.S. sales by 1936, a position it would last hold in 1949.