Walter Percy Chrysler (1875–1940) industrialist

Born in Wamego, Kansas, Chrysler began his career as a machinist’s apprentice after finishing high school. His first job was as an apprentice machinist at the UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD yards, where he developed an interest in machinery that would last his entire life. He later joined the Chicago and Great Western Railroad as a superintendent. He moved again to the American Locomotive Company. He began disassembling automobiles and learning how to reconstruct them in his spare time, and that interest led him to the automobile industry.

Chrysler purchased his first car in 1908, a Locomobile, and immediately took it apart and then rebuilt it to learn as much as possible about automobile engineering. He joined the Buick Motor Company in 1912 as a manager at half of his old salary and became its president in 1916. He then joined GENERAL MOTORS as a vice president of operations. He made numerous improvements to car production since the company was still being run by carriage makers rather than by automotive engineers. He did not get along with the president of GM, William C. DURANT, and retired when the company was reorganized in 1920.

Chrysler was able to retire a millionaire, although he returned to the auto industry soon thereafter when he began to reorganize the Willys Overland Co. at a salary of $1 million per year. In 1925, he took control of the ailing Maxwell Motor Co. and transformed it into the CHRYSLER CORP. The new company produced his first car, equipped with four-wheel hydraulic brakes and a high-compression motor. Within four years it became the second-largest producer in the country. Its most notable product was the Chrysler Six, a six-cylinder engine car that became one of the most popular in the country.

Chrylser’s most notable acquisition was the purchase of the Dodge Brothers’ Motor Co. from Clarence Dillon of DILLON READ & CO., a New York investment bank, in 1928. Growing through acquisition would become a trademark of his company in the future. Adding Dodge to his line substantially increased the company’s name and reputation and enabled it to become the secondlargest carmaker. Previously, it was fifth in a very crowded market. Chrysler also added two new lines, the Plymouth and the DeSoto, after acquiring Dodge.

In the 1920s, he also financed the construction of the Chrysler Building in New York City, at the time the world’s tallest building, eclipsing the Woolworth Building in southern Manhattan. He was unaware that the Empire State Building was being secretly planned to be the world’s tallest building by John RASKOB, the former president of General Motors. Personal rivalries between industrialists were characteristic of the era before the 1929 stock market crash. Chrysler was president of his company from 1925 to 1935 and after relinquishing the job remained as chairman of the board of directors until his death.

Further reading

• Chrysler, Walter P., and Sparkes Boyden. Life of an American Workman. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1950. 
• Curcio, Vincent. Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.