Two women admire a 1947 Chrysler Town & Country convertible car in Marseille. Photograph: Maurice Ambler/Getty Images After his first car was denied entry at the 1924 New York Auto Show, Walter Chrysler parked his prototype for the 1924 Chrysler Six in the lobby. It became the first affordable car with a six-cylinder engine, the most powerful of its time. He founded the Chrysler Corporation on 6 June 1925. Inspired by fighter plane manoeuvres, the Airflow was created in 1934. The car was a financial failure, despite setting new speed records on Utah's salt flats and publicity stunts including driving the Airflow to the brink of a Pennsylvania cliff. However, innovations such as Fluid Drive, a forerunner of automatic transmission, helped the firm turn a profit in 1934 and maintain growth throughout the 1930s. Some time after the company founder died in 1940, the luxury-oriented Town and Country was launched. But in 1942 automobile production was halted and factory resources diverted towards the war effort. Chrysler supplied the allied forces with goods ranging from tanks to aircraft engines and trailer-mounted anti-aircraft guns. After the war, the "Woody" became a popular convertible. In the 1950s, the carmaker ran an advertising campaign entitled "Beautiful Chrysler". Innovations included air-cooled brakes, the Hemi-head V8 engine and Hydraglide, the industry's first power-steering unit. The 1955 Chrysler C-300's engine was so powerful that the car was banned from racing. Chrysler then teamed up with CBS to offer "Highway Hi-Fi", a compact record player mounted under the dashboard. The company lured designer Elwood Engel from Ford to reshape Chrysler styling. He created the 1963 "Engelbird", which had an experimental gas turbine engine. Chrysler also collaborated with Nasa on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz space mission. The US car industry slumped in the wake of the oil shock of 1973 and due to the greater fuel efficiency of Japanese imports. But Lee Iacocca, appointed president of Chrysler in 1978, rekindled sales and became the manufacturer's face through a highly successful series of "New Chrysler" print and TV ads. In the 1990s, the company merged with Daimler-Benz to form DaimlerChrysler.The history of Chrysler
Saturday, 2 May 2009
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