Chrysler

• Company Information
• Date Founded: 1925
• Industry: Automotive
• Corporate Headquarters: Auburn Hills, Michigan
• Type: Public

Overview

Chrysler, also known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles or FCA US LLC, is a publicly traded American automotive company that has manufactured Chrysler brands of automobiles since Walter P. Chrysler founded the Chrysler Corporation in 1925. Chrysler is a subsidiary of Italian automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Prior to opening his own company, Chrysler had been president of Buick Motor Company, vice president of General Motors, and chairman of the Maxwell Motor Car Company. He began venturing into automobile manufacturing for himself when, as chairman of Maxwell in 1924, he developed the Chrysler B-70. This luxury car could reach 70 miles per hour, a major engineering accomplishment at the time.

The success of the car through Maxwell sales allowed Chrysler to found the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, in June 1925. The company advertised itself as an innovator in the automobile industry. The Chrysler B-70, for example, featured a light six-cylinder engine, shock absorbers, and four-wheel hydraulic brakes, which were state-of-the-art components in this era.

Chrysler continued to grow throughout the rest of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. With popular brands such as Jeep and Dodge, Chrysler eventually became known as one of the Big Three of American auto manufacturers, the other two being the Ford Motor Company and General Motors. All three were located in Detroit or the surrounding area.

Chrysler filed for bankruptcy in 2009, during the global financial crisis that significantly affected the American automotive industry. The company was acquired by Italian automaker Fiat in 2014, thereby becoming officially known as Fiat Chrysler. In the early 2020s, the company merged with Stellantis, with Chrysler remaining the company's US subsidiary.

History

Chrysler established itself as a popular and reliable automobile manufacturer among American consumers within only a few years of its founding. In the late 1920s, the company introduced its new Plymouth, Dodge, and DeSoto car brands, which remained affordable for many Americans, even throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Into the mid-1930s, Chrysler continued to develop its automobile technology in accordance with its self-proclaimed status as an innovator in its field. For example, Chrysler became the first automotive company to develop what it called floating power, the process by which a car’s engine was mounted to reduce vibration of the vehicle. Chrysler also incorporated the first replaceable oil filters, downdraft carburetors, and curved one-piece windshields. But not all of the company’s novel efforts succeeded with the American people. For instance, the 1934 Chrysler Airflow—a sleek, aerodynamic car designed to reduce air resistance while being driven—was a massive commercial failure and discouraged Chrysler's innovation for years.

Chrysler and the other major American automakers—principally the Ford Motor Company and General Motors—began experiencing technological and commercial booms in the early 1940s when they began taking defense contracts from the United States government during World War II. Throughout the United States’ involvement in the war, Chrysler manufactured such war supplies as guns, ammunition, trucks, tanks, and aircraft parts.

The 1950s and 1960s saw Chrysler building on its successes of the 1940s. In 1955, the company introduced its Forward Look design, a sleek, chiseled appearance that transported the appearance of Chrysler cars from the 1930s and 1940s into the modern era. The first car in this line was the 1955 Chrysler 300. With its powerful engine and smooth look, the 300 soon became known as a muscle car and was popular in auto racing.

Chrysler continued to focus on car size, style, and speed into the 1960s. It advertised large cars as providing more value for the price. All cars were designed with standard leather interiors and featured more robust machinery to grant them high performance capabilities.

Chrysler experienced a severe financial downturn during the mid- to late 1970s. This was mostly due to its failure to modernize its large vehicles to be smaller and more fuel-efficient in the wake of oil shortage in the United States in 1973. With sales plummeting, Chrysler secured a $1.5 billion bailout from the federal government in 1980.

The company paid off the loan by 1983, thanks to revitalized sales from new car models such as the Dodge Ram pickup truck and the Plymouth Voyager minivan. Over the next decade and a half, Chrysler’s popular minivans and Jeeps helped produce the company’s strongest sales since the 1950s. By 1996, Chrysler controlled 16.2 percent of the American and Canadian car and truck market.

The German automobile manufacturer Daimler-Benz bought the Chrysler Corporation in 1998, and the two companies merged to become Daimler-Chrysler AG. But the new company struggled for several years, closing plants and laying off tens of thousands of workers. In 2005, the company showed billions of dollars in profits due to new models, but by 2006, Chrysler had lost nearly all of what it had made the previous year. In 2007, under severe financial strain, Chrysler sold 80 percent of itself to Cerberus Capital Management.

Chrysler filed for bankruptcy in 2009. This was a result of the global financial crisis that had dealt a particularly damaging blow to the American auto industry. In response, the US federal government loaned Chrysler billions of dollars to keep the company stable. In 2014, Chrysler was purchased by Italian automotive company Fiat, making the Chrysler Corporation’s new name Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The company started trading its stock publicly later that year. In 2021, Fiat Chrysler became Stellantis when it merged with PSA Group. Chrysler became this company's US subsidiary. In 2022, total US sales declined 13 percent from the previous year, but the sale of plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PHEV) increased by 26 percent, with the Jeep Wrangler 4xe claiming the best-selling PHEV spot. In 2024, US sales also declined by 7 percent from the previous year.

Impact

Chrysler became known as one of the Big Three of the American automotive industry soon after the company was founded in the 1920s. Despite its numerous financial downturns, it retained this status into the twenty-first century, earning the reputation of an American auto manufacturing mainstay.

Chrysler brands such as Jeep, Dodge, and Ram succeeded with the public since their introduction and continued to be produced and modernized over many years. These brands became important components of Chrysler’s sales in the early twenty-first century due to the American public’s shift toward sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and trucks rather than small or mid-sized sedans. As a subsidiary of Stellantis in the early 2020s, the company's electric and hybrid vehicle production increased.

Bibliography

Brayton, Rebecca. "History of Chrysler: From Plymouth to Dodge and Jeep." Watch Mojo, www.watchmojo.com/articles/history-of-chrysler-from-plymouth-to-dodge-and-jeep. Accessed 3 Feb. 2025.

"FCA Reports Fourth-quarter and Full-year 2022 Sales Results." Stellantis, Jan. 2023, media.stellantisnorthamerica.com/newsrelease.do?id=24538&mid=1. Accessed 3 Feb. 2025.

Krisher, Tom, Dan Strumpf, and Auto Writers. "Done Deal: Fiat Buys Chrysler Assets." ABC News, 10 June 2009, abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7804697&page=1. Accessed 3 Feb. 2025.

Parker, John. "Why Do Fiat Chrysler’s 1Q16 Sales Suggest Optimism?" Market Realist, 7 Apr. 2016, uk.movies.yahoo.com/amphtml/why-fiat-chrysler-1q16-sales-140658517.html. Accessed 3 Feb. 2025.

Reynolds, Jerry. "Full-Year Auto Sales Report for 2024." Car Pro, 8 Jan. 2025, www.carpro.com/blog/full-year-auto-sales-report-for-2024. Accessed 3 Feb. 2025.

"Timeline: Tracing Chrysler’s History." NPR, 14 May 2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10172953. Accessed 3 Feb. 2025.

Yanik, Anthony J. Maxwell Motor and the Making of the Chrysler Corporation. Wayne State UP, 2009.