Walter Chrysler Dies: Auto Industry's Third Giant

Walter Chrysler transformed the American auto industry by consolidating struggling manufacturers into a company that rivaled Ford and General Motors within a decade of its founding. Born in Wamego, Kansas, in 1875, he started as a machinist's apprentice in a railroad shop and worked his way up through the American Locomotive Company before being recruited by General Motors' Buick division. He tripled Buick's production in four years, then quit over disagreements with GM's founder William Durant. In 1920, a group of bankers hired him to rescue the failing Willys-Overland and Maxwell Motor companies. He reorganized Maxwell into the Chrysler Corporation in 1925 and launched the Plymouth and DeSoto brands to compete at every price point. His 1924 Chrysler Six featured a high-compression engine that outperformed competitors at a lower price, establishing the engineering-first philosophy that defined the company. He acquired Dodge Brothers in 1928, instantly making Chrysler the second-largest automaker in America. His innovations were practical rather than glamorous: he introduced mass-market hydraulic brakes, rubber engine mounts to reduce vibration, and high-compression engines that made driving safer and more powerful for ordinary consumers. The Chrysler Building in Manhattan, completed in 1930, was briefly the tallest structure in the world and remains one of the finest Art Deco buildings ever constructed. He commissioned it as a corporate headquarters and personal monument. He retired in 1935, weakened by illness, and died on August 18, 1940, at sixty-five. The company he built survived for nearly a century before merging with Fiat in 2014.