Chrysler Pictures and Specifications - Chrysler Pictures

During the "Roaring Twenties" General Motors and Ford controlled much of the automobile industry. Though companies were merging by the score, one man, Walter P. Chrysler, rose to challenge the leaders.

During the business recession that followed World War I, the Maxwell Company and the Chalmers Company merged. Walter O. Chrysler, who had recently retired as president of Buick, was persuaded to assume the direction of the new Maxwell Company.

In 1924, The Maxwell Company became the Chrysler Corporation and began offering its first Chrysler, the Model B. Introduced at the 1924 New York Auto Show, this single model started the company´s rise, eventually joining GM and Ford as one of the "Big Three."

In 1930 Chrysler begins using their new "Steelweld" bodies, greatly reducing the number of key elements made with wood.

Chrysler inroduces their "CJ" with a 6-cyliner engine. It is the lowest price six ever offered by Chrysler.

Big news for 1934 was the revolutionary Airflow unveiled in the Chrysler and DeSoto lines. Now considered one of the most influential cars of the 1930´s, the Airflow was primarily the brain-child of Carl Breer, who put into it all of the most modern concepts of streamlined automotive and aviation designs.

All Airflow bodies were constructed around a cage-like steel girder network, to which the body panels were welded. This "unit body" was so strong that, in a publicity stunt, an Airflow was driven off a 100-foot cliff, bounced down the cliff face, landed on all four wheels, and was driven off under its own power. Barney Oldfield and his "Hell Drivers" thrilled millions and demonstrated the durability of the Airflow design at the Chicago World´s Fair.

As innovative as it was, the Airflow was clearly ahead of public tatste and was not a sales success.