From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Percy Chrysler (April 2, 1875 – August 18, 1940) was an American automobile pioneer.^[1]

He was born in Wamego, Kansas and grew up in Ellis, Kansas. He also lived in Oelwein, Iowa, where there is a small park dedicated to him.

His automobile career began when the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) decided to diversify into the automobile business. Chrysler was the plant manager. ALCO had some racing success but less in the way of sales success. Chrysler saw the way things were going and took a job at the Buick Motor Company in Flint, Michigan in 1911, two years before ALCO quit the automobile business. "What I saw [in Flint] astonished me." he wrote in his autobiograhy Life of an American Workman.

In 1916, Billy Durant, who founded General Motors in 1908, had retaken GM from bankers who had taken over the company. Chrysler, who was closely tied to the bankers, submitted his resignation to Durant, then based in New York City.

Durant took the first train to Flint to make an attempt to keep Chrysler at the helm of Buick. Durant made the then-unheard of salary offer of $10,000 ($165,000 in today's dollars) a month for 3 years, with a $500,000 ($8 million in today's dollars) bonus at the end of each year, or $500,000 in stock. Additionally, Chrysler would report directly to Durant, and would have full run of Buick without interference from anyone.

Apparently in shock, Chrysler asked Durant to repeat the offer, which he did. Chrysler immediately accepted.

Not long after his three year contract was up, he resigned from his job as president of Buick in 1919. Durant paid Chrysler $10 million for his GM stock ($106 million in today's dollars). Chrysler had started at Buick in 1911 for $6,000 a year, and left one of the richest men in America.

Chrysler was then hired by John Willys to run his Willys-Overland Motor Company in Toledo, Ohio, at a salary of $1 million a year, an astonishing amount at that time. However, Chrysler tried to oust John Willys with an attempted takeover bid that backfired when the shareholders resisted his move and Chrysler left the company in 1921 following which he acquired a controlling interest in the ailing Maxwell Motor Company. Chrysler phased out Maxwell and absorbed it into his new firm, the Chrysler Corporation, in 1925. In addition to his namesake car company, Plymouth and DeSoto marques were created, and in 1928 Chrysler purchased Dodge. He financed the construction of the Chrysler Building and built it in New York City. In 1928, Chrysler was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year.

This plaque is located in the lobby of the Chrysler Building.

The Chrysler Corporation went through numerous changes over the years, with the Jeep and Eagle brands coming from the acquisition of American Motors. Despite the retirement of the Maxwell, DeSoto, AMC, Eagle, and Plymouth brands, Chrysler continued to be a part of Detroit's Big Three until 1998, when the German company Daimler-Benz, the makers of Mercedes-Benz automobiles, decided to merge with the company to form a new car company, DaimlerChrysler. The Germans have now sold Chrysler to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management.

Walter Chrysler built a country estate in Warrenton in what is referred to as the Virginia horse country and home to the Warrenton Hunt. In 1934, he purchased and undertook a major restoration of the famous Fauquier White Sulphur Springs Company resort and spa in Warrenton. Sold in 1953, the property was developed as a country club, which it remains today.

On his estate, Chrysler established North Wales Stud for the purpose of breeding Thoroughbred horses. Chrysler was part of a syndicate that included friend Alfred G. Vanderbilt II who in 1941 acquired the 1935 English Triple Crown winner Bahram from the Aga Khan III. Bahram stood at stud at Vanderbilt's Sagamore Farm in Maryland then was brought to Chrysler's North Wales Stud.

Walter Chrysler's autobiography was titled The Life of an American Workman.

He is buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

• History @ the Walter P. Chrysler Museum
• Walter P. Chrysler Boyhood Home & Museum
• Fauquier Springs Country Club
• "Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius", Vincent Curcio, Oxford University Press, 2000
• "Life of an American Workman", Walter P. Chrysler in collaboration with Boyden Sparkes, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1937