Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius

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

From Library Journal

Walter P. Chrysler (1875-1940) is the subject of this splendid new biography by Curcio (Suicide Blonde). Although he established the mighty Chrysler Corporation (now DaimlerChrysler), there was much more to Chrysler's life. From hardscrabble beginnings as a railroad machinist, he rose with hard work through the ranks to head a locomotive factory. When Chrysler was introduced to his first automobile, it was love at first sight, and he soon found his way to Detroit and the fledgling automobile industry. He personally supervised the design of the first Chrysler automobile in 1924, and its quick success led, in part, to the founding of the Chrysler Corporation the following year. Chrysler loved a challengeDwhether it was designing a new car, saving a company from bankruptcy, or creating a new building that would change the New York skyline. There were personal setbacks, especially during the Great Depression, but he persevered. While some of the anecdotes here seem irrelevant and a few of the design chronicles are at times longwinded, the book has been rigorously researched and reads well. Highly recommended for larger public libraries and transportation collections.DRichard Drezen, Washington Post News Research Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.