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  • Old Cars Weekly

    1936 Inside Chrysler’s Factory

    Jun 01, 2020 6 minutes
    BY JOHN GUNNELL

    In 1936, the automobile touched more American lives than telephones or electricity. Throughout the country, there were 17.2 million phones and 21.1 million homes wired for electric service, but there were 26 million automobiles.

    Chrysler was beginning its 11th year of business that year. Walter P. Chrysler had left General Motors as a successful and wealthy executive. Then, he was hired by bankers to “fix” Maxwell as he had done at Willys-Overland.

    Mr. Chrysler started building a car named after him in the old Maxwell plant, relying on his “3 Musketeers” — Fred Zeder, Owen Skelton and Carl Breer — for a superior automobile. The Chrysler Model 70 crashed the market for a $1,500 car and gave Ford and GM an able competitor.

    By the 1930s, Chrysler had added Plymouth, Dodge and De Soto to his stable, along with Dodge Truck, Chrysler Marine, air compressors and even air conditioning units. A large percentage of

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