19791776 Club
Chrysler asks Washington for $1.5 billion to stay alive
The smallest of the Big Three says it cannot survive on its own.
By the fall of 1979, Chrysler was running out of road. Smaller than General Motors and Ford, Chrysler was losing ground to import competition and struggling with quality problems on models like the Dodge Aspen. It had already sold Chrysler Europe to Peugeot for a single dollar to shed debt. On September 7, 1979, Chrysler formally asked the federal government for $1.5 billion in loan guarantees, arguing that without it, the company would collapse. The request opened a months-long fight in Congress over whether Washington should rescue a private automaker at all…
