Home Part 2: The Last 100 years 8: Car Manufacturers by Country 8.15 United States 8.15.3. Chrysler History of Chrysler Motor Cars / Automobiles 8.15.3. Chrysler The Chrysler Corporation was formed in 1925 by Walter P Chrysler from the assets of the Maxwell Motor Company that first produced cars in 1904. Maxwell was the profitable part of the the United States Motor Company that existed briefly between 1910 and 1913 and comprised of eleven  vehicle companies. The name was changed to Maxwell Motor Corporation in 1921, with Walter Chrysler as Chairman, and then to the Chrysler Corporation in 1925. The first car to bear the Chrysler name was the Chrysler 6 that was launched in 1924 (when the company was still called the Maxwell Corporation). Over 32,000 of these cars were sold in the first year. The first car produced by the Chrysler Corporation was the Chrysler Four in 1925, followed by the Imperial 80 model in 1926. The Plymouth and DeSoto brand names were introduced in 1928. Chrysler also acquired the Dodge Brothers Motor Vehicle Company in 1928, a company that had been formed  by John and Horace Dodge in 1914. Between 1934 and 1937 Chrysler produced the Airflow model, a car with a very streamlined body that the company had developed in their new wind tunnel. They were the first car manufacturer to use this technology. The first models introduced after World War 2 include the 5,229 cc Crown Imperial and New Yorker in 1946. In 1950 the company produced nearly 170,000 cars, a figure that increased to over 224,000 in 1965. By the late 1970s Chrysler encountered serious financial problems but soon recovered and in 1987 it acquired the American Motors Corporation (which was formed in 1954 by the merger of the Hudson Car Company and the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation). Between 1954 and 1987 AMC brought together Hudson, Rambler, Nash, Overland Automotive Willys Motor Company, Kaiser Motors and  Kaiser-Jeep. In 1998 the Chrysler Corporation was purchased by Daimler-Benz of Germany and became the DaimlerChrysler Motors Company LLC. In 2004 DaimlerChrysler introduced the 3.2 litre Crossfire sports car, producing over 76,000 by 2005. The original 300 "letter series" were luxury cars built by Chrysler between 1955 and 1965, with a new letter used for each year's model. In 1979 the 300 name made a brief reappearance when 3,811 limited special edition Cordoba cars were produced. DaimlerChrysler re-introduced the “letter series” in 1999 for their 300M sporting sedans and a new generation 300 model entered production in 2004.  Five versions were produced, including a sedan and a station wagon.  Models available in 2007 include the PT Cruiser and Convertible, Town & Country, Sebring Sedan and Convertible, the 300, Pacifica, Crossfire and Aspen.   [ Back ]