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By: William Gallagher
AKA wa3ra
 WP
Chrysler was a native of Kansas, and cut his teeth
on railroading. He was the son of an engineer on the
Kansas and Pacific Railroad, and was always
fascinated by machinery. As a young man, he built
his own working railroad model, machining his own
tools in the process. When he was 17, he signed on
at the Union Pacific shops as an apprentice, for a
nickel an hour. Mechanical engineering became young
Walt Chrysler's life, not his profession.
After he got his journeyman's certificate, he took a
job in the Rio Grande & Western roundhouse in Salt
Lake City. He got married and began studying with
the International Correspondence School. He steadily
moved up through the industry.
After a bit of time, the superintendent of motive
power of the whole Chicago & Great Western system
was a new man named Chrysler. "W.P." they called
him. During his Great Western period Mr. Chrysler
lived in Oelwein, Iowa. His mechanical curiosity was
piqued by the new ‘horseless carriages’ he’d see
traversing the town streets.
He went to the 1905 Chicago automobile show, where
he saw a beautiful auto that he had to have. It was
called a ‘Locomobile’. The price was $5,000 cash.
Chrysler had only $700 in the bank, but that did not
hold him back. He borrowed $4,300 and shipped it
home. He spent months with his first car, tearing it
down and reassembling it several times before he
even learned to drive it! Chrysler decided that when
the time was right, he would need to improve these
things.
At 33, machinist/manager WP joined on with the
American Locomotive Company, where he swiftly rose
through the ranks. He was assigned to the position
of Assistant Works Manager at the sprawling ALCO
Pittsburgh plant, which he quickly transformed into
a moneymaker. It was in this position that WP was
first noticed by one of the directors of ALCO, James
J. Storrow, who would soon the president of General
Motors.
James Storrow, the president of GM, remembered the
young Chrysler, and introduced him to Charlie Nash,
then the president of Buick. After touring the Buick
works, Nash could offer WP only $6000 a year, half
of WP’s $12000 a year ALCO salary. Chrysler did not
even hesitate! He immediately accepted the Buick
position.
It was 1911, and Walter P. Chrysler was in the
automobile business!
Over the next few years, WP built Buick into a power
to be reckoned with, with Nash at the helm. In 1916,
however, William Crapo Durant used the power of his
upstart Chevrolet Company to leverage the presidency
of General Motors. Nash would not be welcome under
Durant, and Nash and Chrysler were a team.
Nash purchased another auto manufacturer, in
Kenosha, Wisconsin, and created the Nash Motors
Company, which would later become American Motors.
It was assumed that Chrysler would join him at the
helm of this new company.
Durant had other ideas, however. He offered WP a
salary of $10,000 a month, plus a yearly bonus of
half-a-million dollars, in either GM stock or cash.
Chrysler accepted, on the condition that he be
allowed to run Buick with no interference from other
GM companies. WP was now the president of Buick
Motors, a job he would hold until 1919, when
friction between Chrysler and Durant would come to a
head. By 1919, WP had earned $ 10 million worth of
GM stock, which he surrendered to GM for cash.
Chrysler would eventually use this money to seed his
own automobile company.
The only thing WP Chrysler lacked at this time was
experience in automotive finance. He signed on at
the Willys-Overland Company, overhauling the company
from ‘hub-caps to stockholders’. During the same
time period, he did the same thing at Maxwell
Motors. After he arranged a merger between Maxwell
and Chalmers, he felt he had the needed experience.
In 1924, he began selling his Chrysler automobiles.
Within the Maxwell Motors
 framework,
he established two lines, Chrysler, making the Model
65 and 75 and Imperial, the Model 80. Still, by
1927, the bankers that controlled Maxwell-Chalmers
at the time were not comfortable with the ideas that
WP had for his cars. To end their meddling, Chrysler
bought the Maxwell concern outright. Thus was born
the Chrysler Corporation.
In early July of 1928, Walter P. Chrysler offered
the public a new automobile called the Plymouth. At
the end of that same month, Dodge Bros. turned over
their business to the Chrysler Corp. The Dodge
Company included Graham Bros., a large truck
company. Almost incidentally, he brought out a new
line of commercial cars--the Fargo "Packets" and
"Clippers”.
Early in autumn of 1928 came the news that Walter P.
Chrysler was going to build the world's tallest
skyscraper, a 68-story colossus towering more than
800 feet above Manhattan. When it opened to the
public on May 27, 1930, at 405 Lexington Avenue, the
Chrysler Building was the tallest building in the
world. This only lasted for several months until the
Empire State Building was completed
During the Great Depression of the 30’s, while many
other companies would fail and disappear forever,
the Chrysler Corporation would not only survive, but
thrive. Chrysler did this by dropping the prices of
his cars, selling them at for only a small profit.
He also had maintained the research and development
that made Chrysler products famous during these lean
times.
Chrysler would stay on as president of the company
he founded until 1935, when he turned over the reins
to K.T. Keller, an able machinist and manager that
Mr. Chrysler worked with during his years at Buick.
Mr. Chrysler would remain the Chairman of the Board
of Directors, as he had since 1925, until his death
on August 18, 1940.
The automotive world had lost a one of its greatest
personalities, but the company founded by Walter P.
Chrysler would continue to grow and thrive for many
years.
© 2002 William J. Gallagher
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