Museums 301: Chrysler automobiles, 1927-1937 (photo diary)

Walter P. Chrysler was a self-taught engineer who started his career as a mechanic, traveling from town to town working in different machine shops. In Wellington, Kansas he went to work in the machine shops for the Santa Fe Railroad. He then went to work for Buick as a works manager and rose fairly quickly to become the company’s president. In 1920, the Maxwell-Chalmers company hired Chrysler to overhaul the company’s troubled operations. Chrysler brought in three engineers from Studebaker—Fred Zeder, Owen Skelton, and Carl Breer—in order to design a...