Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius (Automotive History and Personalities) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "A hundred and twenty million years ago, before time began, the entire middle of what is now the United States of America was covered by..." (more)
Key Phrases: unpublished manuscript version, lamp apart, armory system, Walter Chrysler, New York, Henry Ford (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It takes a while to get used to Vincent Curcio's highly colored prose, but his old-fashioned narrative technique suits his subject, the Kansas railroad mechanic who rose to become head of America's most dynamic car company. Born in 1875, Walter P. Chrysler came late to the automobile business, joining Buick in 1912, when the early companies were firmly established. Chrysler made his mark by being a great leader who thoroughly understood engineering and production, and who valued the contributions of his employees and directed them to produce high-quality, popularly priced cars. He made it his business to ignore conventional wisdom: he headquartered his company in New York instead of Detroit, commissioned a fabulous art deco skyscraper to house it, and introduced the first mass-produced, streamlined, aerodynamic car in 1934. The Airflow was a financial disaster but hugely influential on future design, and the well-managed Chrysler Corporation made money even during the Great Depression. Chrysler himself became enormously wealthy and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle during the decade before his death in 1940. Curcio's detailed, wide-ranging text offers an instructive history of the automobile industry as well as a full-bodied portrait of a classic American individual, praised by his peers as "one of the world's greatest manufacturers and one of the world's best men." --Wendy Smith --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

From humble beginnings as a Kansas railroad-shop apprentice wiping down locomotives for 5U cents an hour, Walter Chrysler (1875-1940) rose to become a railroad master mechanic and foreman, then a leading auto manufacturer and industrial mogul. Brashly confident, convinced of America's limitless potential for economic growth, Chrysler, "the quintessence of American business in the 1920s," built Manhattan's Chrysler BuildingAart deco emblem of modernism and progressAwhose spire went up just one month before the 1929 stock market crash. This dynamic biography brings a surprisingly neglected giant out of the shadows. Chrysler, self-educated, self-made son of a German immigrant, is not nearly as well known as Henry Ford, even though he expanded Detroit's Big Two (GM and Ford) into the Big Three, when Chrysler Corporation bought out Dodge in 1928. (His legacy lives on in Daimler-Chrysler, formed in 1998.) Two contrasting personalities emerge: one is the far-sighted, risk-taking industrialist, perhaps the last great individualist of automaking, a man who seemed genuinely concerned about his employees, a caring father of four with a rare gift for managing men, plants and machinery. The other is the hard-drinking, big-eating, tuba-playing bon vivant, "probably... a functioning alcoholic," who embarrassed his family and nearly wrecked his marriage thanks to his affair with showgirl Peggy Hopkins Joyce. Curcio never fully reconciles these two sides of his elusive subject, but his robust, engaging portrait is chock-full of lore from the classic automobile era, as it sets the Chrysler saga against the backdrop of the Roaring 20s, the Depression and the labor unrest of the 1930s. 50 photos. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195147057
• ISBN-13: 978-0195147056
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #389,041 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Long Last -- A History of Walter P. Chrysler, June 26, 2000

By	Jim Benjaminson (North Dakota, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius (Hardcover)

My mother always said that the good things always came last. And so it is with this biography of Walter P. Chrysler. As I sit and look at the books on my library shelves, I find volumes of information on the men who built the automobile industry. Henry Ford, William Durant, the Dodge Brothers, etc. but there were two notable men missing--Charles Nash and Walter Chrysler.

The only work on Chrysler was his own ghost written autobiography which first appeared in serialized form in the Saturday Evening Post back in 1937--and reprinted in book form in 1950, ten years after Chrysler's death.

I was fortunate to meet Vincent Curcio, the author of this new work on Walter Chrysler in 1994, at Walter Chrysler's boyhood home in Ellis, Kansas. Six years is a long time to wait but the wait was worth it. Vincent Curcio spent those six years traveling the country, visiting every place Walter Chrysler ever lived--considering his wunder lust while working for the railroads, Curcio had a lot of steps to cover. He was able to meet and interview old timers who had worked with or knew Walter Chrysler personally. Considering their age, this was a vital link to Chrysler that will soon be lost....

Curcio takes us from railroad town to railroad town, then to Chicago where Chrysler saw and fell in love with an ivory colored Locomobile car that he purchased and had shipped to his home in Oelwein, Iowa (after all, Chrysler did not know how to drive at that point!).

The book is rich in lore about Chrysler--how he moved from working on the railroad to building locomotives FOR the railroads--and his move to Flint, Michigan where he began working for Charles Nash at the giant Buick works. His clashes with GM founder William Durant led to his early retirement--a retirement that ended when nervous bankers asked him to salvage first the Willys Corporation and then Maxwell-Chalmers. The latter, of course, would be his stepping stone to building the Chrysler Corporation.

The book chronicles the rise of Chrysler Corporation, the building of the Chrysler Building in New York City and Chrysler's personal life. Its a warts and all story--from Chrysler's stock manipulations, to his million dollar mistress, to his run-ins with the law over illegal prohibition era booze and illegal taking of game. Every story you may have ever heard about Chrysler, or the cars he built, is in this book--and documented in detail.

Vincent Curcio's book is not an "easy" read. At over 600 pages you will not skim through it in a night or two. Its the size of a Bible--and for Chrysler fans, it will be the bible on Walter Chrysler for years to come. I highly recommend it.

(Note - portions of this review have been reprinted from the Plymouth Bulletin magazine, published by the Plymouth Owners Club, Inc and is used by permission)

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An engaging look at a fascinating man, July 28, 2000

By	Jussi Bjorling (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius (Hardcover)

I picked up this book after reading Bill Vlasic's "Taken for a Ride", about the DaimlerChrysler merger. This book goes back to the beginning of the story, tracing Walter Chrysler's beginnings through the early decades of his car company. Chrysler's life, which was never less than flamboyant, is the ideal subject for a biography (why did no one write one before?), and Vincent Curcio has brought a colorful and engaging style to the story. The book's focus shifts between the company's business decisions, always daring if occasionally foolish, and Chrysler's personal life, which is wildly entertaining. My only complaint about the book is that it might have been a little bit shorter; even Walter Chrysler has trouble filling up 600+ pages. But it's a delight to read nonetheless.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The other great one, December 23, 2001

By	Gabriel Toscana Videgaray (Monterrey, Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having read extensively in the past about both Ford Motor Company and General Motors, I was very interested in getting to know the other member of the "Big Three" (sadly, today we can only talk about the remaining two after Chrysler's incompetent Bob Eaton surrendered the company to Daimler Benz).

Although the book is centered in Walter P. Chrysler the author finds it hard not to get carried away by much more imposing personalities in the early automotive business, mainly Henry Ford and William C. Durant (founder of GM). They are mentioned 52 and 53 times respectively.

Both Ford and Durant are much more interesting personalities than Chrysler himself and if not for anything else, the book is worth the read just to get to know Mr. Durant. The reason he is much less known today than his other two competitors is that he resisted the temptation to change General Motors name to Durant Motors (he could have done it but decided the GM trademark was too valuable), later in his life he did found a company called Durant Motors but it didn't survive long. If there is an epic to be told about the automotive industry in the USA it is Durant's: he founded General Motors, was ousted from the company, founded Chevrolet, bought his way back to GM control, was ousted again, founded Durant Motors, lost everything after the crash of 1929 and if not for the monetary help his friends (including Walter Chrysler) gave him at the end of his life he would have lived his last days in abject poverty.

Walter Chrysler actually made his reputation and original fortune working for William Durant at General Motors' Buick division and after he quit the corporation eventually assembled the Chrysler Corporation (mainly from Maxwell Motors and the Dodge Brothers enterprises). It was a great accomplishment in itself as he started very late (too late thought many) to matter much, and yet he climbed to the third place in sales and eventually to the second place (outranking Ford Motor from 1936 to 1951). Sure, GM (through Alfred Sloan leadership) outclassed both of them and by such a wide margin that (until very recent times) there was absolutely no comparison between the leader and the other two.

An interesting fact mentioned in the book is that the Chrysler Building at New York was NOT built by the Chrysler Corporation, but by Walter Chrysler himself so he could give it to his children. At the time it was completed, it was the tallest building in the world.

The scope of Curcio's book is very wide and you end learning many things from the first years of automotive history. In other words, it is much more than Walter Chrysler's biography. I fully recommend it.