19251776 Club
Walter Chrysler buries Maxwell Motor; a new company rises in Highland Park
The railroad mechanic turned auto executive reorganizes Maxwell's troubled remains into the Chrysler Corporation, closing the books on years of unsold cars and a bad merger.
By 1920, the Maxwell Motor Company was drowning — more than half its cars sat unsold, and its awkward merger with the ailing Chalmers Automobile Company had made things worse. Walter Chrysler, a railroad mechanic turned auto executive who had already rescued Willys-Overland, took a controlling interest in Maxwell and set about correcting its notorious quality problems, marketing the improved car simply as the "good Maxwell." On June 6, 1925, he reorganized the whole enterprise into the Chrysler Corporation, headquartered in Highland Park, Michigan — and within eleven years, the new company had clawed its way to second place in American auto sales…
