| (1875
- 1940) |
| Inducted: |
1986 |
| Region: |
MidWest |
| Industry: |
Transportation
Manufacturing |
|
Walter P. Chrysler loved cars and taught himself to drive. He welcomed General Motors’s invitation to revitalize Buick, then the company's largest division. He introduced cost control, mechanization, and assembly-line methods that quadrupled production in three years. In 1920, at the request of bankers, he went to the rescue of the Maxwell Motor Co. Under his direction, it produced an attractive mid-priced car in 1924 featuring such innovations as a high-compression engine and four-wheel hydraulic brakes. Maxwell sold 32,000 of them the first year, a record for a new car. In 1925 Maxwell was renamed Chrysler Corp. |
