AUTOMOTIVE HISTORY – AUGUST 18, 1940 - Walter P. Chrysler Dies

Walter P. Chrysler, in full Walter Percy Chrysler, (born April 2, 1875, Wamego, Kan., U.S.—died Aug. 18, 1940, Great Neck, N.Y.), American engineer and automobile manufacturer, founder of Chrysler Corporation.

Chrysler was the third of four children of Henry (“Hank”) and Anna Marie (“Mary”) Chrysler. When he was three, his family moved to Ellis, Kan., where his father, a lifelong railroad engineer, went to work for the Kansas Pacific Railroad (later a division of the Union Pacific Railroad Company).

As a child, Walter Chrysler dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps in the railroad business. He developed a passion for machinery that would last his entire life. Although Hank Chrysler was adamant that his son go to college, Walter defied him and began an apprenticeship in a railroad machine shop when he was 17 years old. He spent the next 20 years working his way up the echelons of railroad engineering, developing a reputation for his creative mechanical mind and his tireless enthusiasm. Quoting the poet Walt Whitman, he once said of his work, “To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

Chrysler did not enter the automobile business until he was 36 years old, when he met Charles Nash, president of General Motors (GM). At the time, Chrysler was earning $12,000 a year at the American Locomotive Company, but Nash persuaded him to join GM as the manager of the Buick plant in Flint, Mich., for only half that amount. In the years to come, Chrysler would completely revolutionize Buick’s manufacturing system, introducing assembly-line processes pioneered by Henry Ford and more than tripling production.

In 1915, when William (“Billy”) Durant, the GM founder, returned to run the company, he took note of Chrysler’s achievements, and in 1916 he made him president of Buick. Under Chrysler’s leadership, Buick became the strongest unit of General Motors and the most successful automobile brand in the country.

Within a year of his resignation from Buick, Chrysler had assumed direction of both Willys-Overland Company and Maxwell Motor Company, Inc. At the time, Maxwell was an ailing company, drowning in debt. Chrysler set about reviving it, introducing the Chrysler Six in January 1924 during the New York Automobile Show. The genius of Chrysler’s new car was not only its advanced engine technology and its stylish appearance but its price: under $2,000, it was priced for average folk. The low-cost car was a hit with the public, and some 32,000 units were built and sold in a single year. The Chrysler brand was such a success that in 1925 the Maxwell Motor Corporation was reorganized into the Chrysler Corporation.

In 1928 Chrysler purchased Dodge Brothers, Inc., and later that year introduced the first Plymouth model to compete with modestly priced Fords and Chevrolets. The corporation became a major company in the American automotive industry, and Chrysler was named Time magazine’s 1928 Man of the Year. He was riding high that year, as the Chrysler Corporation entered the top tier of American automaking, alongside General Motors and the Ford Motor Company.

Not content just to build iconic automobiles, Chrysler turned his attention to the erection of an iconic building. Between 1928 and 1930 he supervised the construction of the Chrysler Building, a striking Art Deco skyscraper, 77 stories high, on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street in New York City. Until the Empire State Building was completed in 1931, the Chrysler Building was the tallest building in the world. The structure was a separate endeavour from the auto business, designed as a business venture for Chrysler’s two sons, who were not interested in joining their father in the car industry.

In 1938 Chrysler suffered a stroke at his home on Long Island, N.Y., and that same year his wife died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Two years later Chrysler suffered a second stroke and died at age 65. He was buried beside his wife in the family mausoleum at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, N.Y.

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