By: Zac Wilson | Design by: Elushika Weerakoon
Chrysler is in a pinch. The auto industry is struggling as a whole, only adding to Chrysler's woes, and for some reason a group of Italians wants to own one of the Big Three. But this isn't the first time the car giant hit a pothole. "Chrysler's fortunes have always waxed and waned depending on the acceptance of their car design, of their styling, and of their innovation," says Chrysler enthusiast and author Darwin Holmstrom, who wrote HEMI: Muscle Cars. Here, we take a look at Chrysler's best, worst and most innovative cars, and how they illustrate the bumpy history of the underdog of Detroit. Start your engines.
Chrysler's very first brush with bankruptcy was way back in the 1930s with the Airflow. Walter Percy Chrysler almost lost everything. "It was a very innovative car, with an aerodynamic modern design and hydraulic brakes," says Holstrom. "Chrysler wanted it to market fast, so he cut some corners and quality suffered and the cars got a bad reputation. And to top that off, the design wasn't well accepted--people just thought it was a spaceship or something." Sales were slow, and Chrysler suffered.
With the failure of the Airflow, Chrysler was out and K.T. Keller was in. The company wanted to stay conservative under Keller's leadership, so the Chrysler Windsor, and others like it, were released. Chrysler, like other car manufacturers, was sticking to the basic run of the mill models until 1942, when the government placed a ban on car production because of World War II.
When the production ban was lifted in 1945, the American people had car fever. Though everyone wanted new cars, conservative Chrysler stuck to producing the same old designs. But they now also had the new HEMI engine, like in the Saratoga, which was wildly popular in racing circuits but not available for consumers. "Chrysler was the last to come up with new everyday passenger designs, and they were making cars in the early 50s that still looked like late 30s," says Holstrom. There were few good years after the war, but failure to innovate almost brought bankruptcy to Chrysler's door again.
Keller left Chrysler to work for the government (but remained on as chairman of the board). Tex Colbert took over in 1950, and he knew the old designs weren't working for the company. Brilliant designer Virgin Exner, hired just one year earlier by Keller, was immediately put on a passenger redesign, which launched the K-310. They key was the car's simplicity, featuring a long hood and short rear deck. This would later become the standard style for the muscle car generation.
As chairman, Keller had the power to block innovative designs, but finally, by late 1954, he realized he was wrong and Chrysler's C-300 pulled up. "The '55 Chrysler 300 was really the first American super high performance car," says Holstrom. "It was very expensive, very high end. Exner's designs were just perfect for the late '50s into the early '60s. He really understood the wing, the tail fin, and up until about '58 they probably had the most well integrated designs." Once again, Chrysler was flush.
Exner's style was great for the '50s, but "his aesthetic didn't translate well into the '60s and there was a sort of backlash against it, and again Chrysler found itself in hard times," says Holstrom. The Belvadere was unappealing to the public, "but at the same time they had the best engines on the market." Again, the car was great for racing but not popular with the general public.
Chrysler did well enough selling decent looking cars touting powerful engines, but the 1968 redesign of the GTX and others brought the company back into popularity. "That redesign in '68 was just perfect for the time," says Holstrom. "It was clean, agile, a perfect nexus of product and marketing environment." The B-bodied cars, including the redesigned muscle Charger and the bread-and-butter Coronets and Satellites, sold more than 750,000 units. "There was customer demand, Chrysler had the right products, and they just kicked butt in sales."
When the EPA applied emissions requirements beginning in 1975, the core of the automobile industry was shaken. A few cars made an impact in the early 1970s, but with the new regulations, HEMI engines disappeared. "The Chrysler cars of the mid to late '70s were the most dismal products of any out there, probably because Chrysler had the shallowest pockets," Holstrom says. "They focused on developing cars that would run." Chrysler bled money, approaching its first billion-dollar loss in 1979 and triggering a government bailout in 1980.
Back from the dead but still on life support, Chrysler developed the TKTKVAN in the early '80s, which helped the company get back on its feet. One of the first large passenger cars, the minivan eventually replaced the station wagon as the family standard.
Before the Wrangler was released to the public in '87, it was mostly used in the military. Even today, the Wrangler is one of the most solid vehicles on the market. "The Wrangler has value--Jeep will survive the changes Chrysler is going through," Holstrom says. "It has its problems, but no other car company has had the presence of mind to compete. It's a wide open vehicle."
The Viper is a now-classic sports car and a cultural icon--see almost any video game with cars for proof. One of famed designer Tom Gale's projects, the car is innovative because of its sleek lines and flashy design, but also because of what's under the hood. "The V10 is basically a tuned up truck engine," Holstrom says. "It was pretty cool than and it still is today."
Another of Gale's designs, the Intrepid was one of the first cab forward cars, which placed the cab and driver much further than previous vehicles. "Tom Gail's design team was really brilliant at developing product that people wanted to buy," Holstrom says. "The cab forward cars like the Intrepid, those were really what people wanted at the time."
Daimler and Chrysler formed the "merger of equals" in 1998, though most car enthusiasts see it as a scar on automobile history. "The new cars weren't innovative or technologically interesting," Holstrom says. The Crossfire was one of the first cars designed and produced fully under the DailmerChrysler name. Sales were slow across the board, and the drama heightened as more and more info leaked out about how the company was run internally. "It seemed as if Daimler just tossed together a car as cheaply as possible to say they had a new car. They didn't want to spend a penny on the development of these things."
One of the last Tom Gale projects before his retirement, the 300C is one of the few successful contemporary Chryslers. "The new 300C in 2005 was very innovative," Holstrom says. The car featured a V8 HEMI engine and rear wheel drive. "This was a time when GM and Ford, and even Toyota for that matter, were marketing really bland cars. They were absolutely repulsive. But the 300C was very innovative."
No one really knows what to expect from the Fiat takeover of Chrysler, but most people aren't happy about it. "You'd have to be some sort of delusional outsider who really wants to believe Fiat is bringing something to the table to think that anything will come with this except Fiat absorbing the Chrysler dealer network," says Holstrom. "What they're going to sell--who knows. I'd be suspect of anything coming out of Chrysler in the hard times."
