1930 Chrysler

The 1930 Chrysler 66 Roadster with Rumble Seat was the least expensive of the Chrysler clan.

Walter Chrysler was a railroad man who cut his teeth in the auto industry when he started to work for Charles Nash at General Motors. When Nash left GM in 1915 Chrysler stayed on at the Buick Division but he butted heads so often with Billy Durant--Nash's replacement--that he quit. His new job would be to rescue Maxwell and Chalmers from bankruptcy. Astonishingly, the two automakers were in the middle of a lawsuit brought about in a stalled merger.

The 1923 Maxwell was billed as 'the good Maxwell."

Maxwell recovered magnificently from Chrysler's magic touch, making a profit of more then $2 million in 1923. The Chalmers name was retired at the end of the season.

Working with Zeder, Skelton and Breer--three brilliant engineers--they created a new car, one that would bear Chrysler's name on the radiator. It would be a more expensive companion to Maxwell. Chrysler borrowed $5 million to launch the Chrysler marque at the New York Auto Show in January of 1924.

Walter P. Chrysler and the first automobile to bear his name.

The Chrysler brand did well as did the revamped Maxwell line. Chrysler was designed to compete with higher-end nameplates: Buick, Nash, Studebaker and Hudson. Within a year the $5 million debt was retired. On June 6th, 1925 the Chrysler Corporation was formed with $40 million behind it.

A week later Chrysler Canada Limited was established, taking over the Maxwell plant in Windsor, Ontario. With 181 employees on the payroll, Chrysler Canada workers turned out 7,857 vehicles that first year.

The 1926 Chrysler Imperial Four-Passenger Coupe was as fast as it was beautiful.

Chrysler's market was broadened considerably in 1926. Although the Maxwell name was dropped, the identical car was continued as Chrysler Model 58. Simultaneously the luxurious Chrysler Imperial was launched to compete with Cadillac, Franklin, Kissel, Packard and Pierce-Arrow. 

The company expanded quickly with a factory opening in Belgium that year and another in the UK in 1927.

Entering the low-price field, Chrysler brought Plymouth to market on June 11th, 1928. Designed to do battle with Ford and Chevrolet, Walter was so proud of his four-cylinder baby that he commandeered the third one off the line and drove to Fairlane, Henry Ford's estate. He spent a pleasant afternoon with Henry and Edsel. Chrysler gave Henry the Plymouth and went home in a cab.

DeSotos roll off the assembly line.

DeSoto was the next part of Chrysler's master plan, bowing to the public in 1929. The name was in honour of Hernando DeSoto, the 16th Century explorer who sailed up the Mississippi River and claimed much of North America for Spain. 

Planned as a lower-priced companion car in the corporate lineup, DeSoto fit neatly between Plymouth and Chrysler. It was intended to compete with Oldsmobile, Hudson, Nash, Studebaker, Durant and Dodge Brothers.

Dodge Brothers was especially targeted because it was the third largest automaker. Only Ford and the General Motors combine were bigger. 

The Dodge Brothers Six was offered to Canadians in eight body styles. Prices ranged from $1,220 to $1,365.

Though the Dodge brothers had died of Spanish Flu in 1920, their widows shrewdly kept their shares in the company. Skillful managers from powerful Dillon Reed, the investment banker,  continued to keep the concern in the black. Suddenly Dodge Brothers came up for sale. Chrysler snapped it up but DeSoto no longer had its intended spot. It was finally decided to market DeSoto between the low-buck Plymouth and the mid-range Dodge Brothers.

When the stock market crashed in 1929 management at Chrysler quickly moved to weather the storm by cutting prices on Plymouth and assigning it to all DeSoto and Dodge showrooms. Suddenly Plymouth was available in more than 7,000 dealerships. The change-up was a wise move, one that ensured sales and profits during the worldwide business depression that would linger for nearly a decade.

There was plenty of work to be done in-house aside from flogging Plymouth. Engine sizes were rationalized, some were weeded out. A new medium-sized straight-eight motor was introduced but to make it a volume seller, there were variations for Dodge and DeSoto. 

Models were carried over from 1929 with new ones inserted into the mix in the spring of 1930. Prices ranged from USD$835 for a Plymouth to the seven-passenger Chrysler Imperial Sedan Limousine that sold for USD$3,575.

The 1930 Chrysler Imperial Sedan was the corporate flagship.

All 1930 Chryslers made use of "Architonic" design. Steel was in vogue but the sales catalogue said that the finest hardwoods had been selected to reinforce the body, to give the greatest strength. The big news was the slim-shell radiator that was phared into the hood. Styling was done in-house and completed bodies were shipped from the Budd Company.

In 1930 Chryslers could be ordered with the latest technology--the radio. One could drive and tune in serials, news, soap operas, dramas, sporting events and live concerts. Radio sets came with distinct parts: an amplifier, speakers and a dash-mounted receiver. Batteries were stored in a galvanized compartment under the driver's seat while the aerial was hidden in the top of the body--a lead-in wire ran through the passenger-side windshield post.The cost was more than $100 and it took two days to install a radio in a vehicle.

Introduced in January of 1929, the Chrysler 66 was sold for two seasons, through to the end of November 1930. The "66" stood for the rate of speed the car was capable of. The seven-main bearing six-cylinder Silver Dome engine developed 65 horsepower while the Redhead was a higher-compression version.  Wheelbase was 112.75 inches and boasted an 11-gallon gas tank. Fuel flow was guaranteed by use of a fuel pump rather than relying on a vacuum unit. All Chryslers were equipped with Lockheed hydraulic brakes to stop those 18-inch tires. 

Available as a roadster with a rumble seat, Royal Coupe, Business Coupe, Phaeton, Brougham or Royal Sedan, the 66 Series ranged in price in the US  from $995 to $1095. Here at home the price jumped up to $1,345. A respectable 22,606 units were built and sold in North America.

Visit my old car website at: The Oilspot Eh!
Copyright James C. Mays 1999
All rights reserved.

1931 Plymouth

President and company founder Walter P. Chrysler poses with the first 1931 Plymouth in the PA series.

The gloom and doom that settled over the nation in 1931 was every bit as thick as the dirt left behind after one of those horrific Prairie dust storms. From coast to coast, millions of Canadians eked out a pitiful existence because the nation’s economy had been crippled by a worldwide business depression. No sector of the economy was exempt. Wheat prices collapsed, the value of pulp and paper plummeted, fish prices sank, companies went bust and factories fettered their doors.

So many Manitobans were unemployed and homeless that in January of 1931 the Premier was forced to turn, hat in hand, to Ottawa in hopes that the federal government would pick up the tab for 80 percent of that province’s relief. The Keystone Province's coffers were empty. As the ranks of the unemployed swelled, relief (welfare) applicants mushroomed to numbers that reached the stratosphere. The provincial treasurer could not even cover Manitoba's commitment to Ottawa for its part of the Old Age Pension. The Keystone Province was headed for bankruptcy when the federal government finally intervened.

The 1931 Plymouth PA Four-door Sedan sold for $795 f.o.b. Windsor, Ontario. A total of 3,292 Plymouths sold throughout the Dominion that year.

Thousands of jobless men in British Columbia were organized and loud in their demands for work and relief assistance. Politicians feared these desperate citizens might embrace Communism or worse, commit acts of violence. Emergency loans from the chartered banks covered relief cheques to BC's unemployed added up to a a stunning $2 million in 1931.

  The most expensive Plymouth PA in the 1931 lineup was the Convertible Coupe, listing for $825.

Unemployment in Ontario spiraled dangerously upward toward the 10 percent mark in 1931. While the treasury at Queen’s Park was still in the black, revenues were down by shocking $8 million in 1930 and would fall another $3 million by the end of 1931.

If things were bad across Canada, they were positively bleak in the Dominion of Newfoundland where the public debt had skyrocketed to $110 million. Britain, to whom Newfoundland was closely tied, abandoned the gold standard that year. Newfoundland’s economy was based primarily on its fisheries. Fish products were priced in Pounds Sterling and without gold to back the currency, competitors opted for catch from Canada’s Maritime Provinces. The House of Assembly in St. John’s scrambled to stay afloat. Desperate to shore up the economy, legislators voted to borrow $8 million but no financial institution would loan the government any money. The handwriting was on the wall for the island nation as it skated on thinner and thinner ice and would soon plunge into the black and icy waters of  bankruptcy.

Against this stark backdrop, the automakers soldiered on. Canadian passenger car production had been 125,442 units in 1930 but as the depression deepened daily, orders for new cars and trucks dwindled. Still, motorized vehicles were a necessity and as long as there were any buyers out there, the manufacturers would beat the bushes for customers. Sales would be far and few between, the domestic output would drop by nearly half to 65,093 units at year’s end and would tumble even further in 1932.

Plymouth started 1931 with the warmed-over Model U. The Four-door Sedan weighed in at 1,238 kilos (2,730 pounds).

Chrysler Canada started out the year by selling off last year's Plymouth 30-U models. Records indicate that when the last of the 802 units of the “Finer U” was shipped from its Windsor, Ontario plant, the Division then fielded an all-new Plymouth PA in six body styles. As the first cars came down the assembly lines in May, salesmen were taught how to sell the finer points of the new Plymouth. 

The svelte automobiles created  excitement within the industry and with the public as well, because the PA represented the first restyle for Plymouth since its debut in 1928. Salesmen soon learned that the car's beauty would play second fiddle to engineering, economy and national pride. The twin battle cries were, “The Smoothness of an Eight--The Economy of a Four” and “Canadian-built for Canadians!” 

 Visit my old car website at: The Oilspot Eh!

This year’s Plymouth was not just another pretty face. The low-bucks beauty, intended to duke it out with Chevrolet and Ford, bristled with innovation. Engineers blessed the Plymouth’s four-cylinder engine with an innovative pair of  three-centimetre thick (one-inch) thick, live rubber mountings that “allowed the engine to rock or oscillate on this natural axis, this dissipating the power impulses.” The cushion between the engine and the frame was dubbed Floating Power. This engineering breakthrough promised to deliver the “smoothness of an Eight with the simplicity of design and the economy of operation that are the birthright of the Four.”

The 56-horsepower mill delivered smooth acceleration. It “whisks you to stop-watch speeds of 65 (110 kilometres) to 70 miles (120 kilometres) an hour (ancient Canadian units of measurement).” Drivers were invited to take their foot off the accelerator at top speed and note the quiet deceleration in comparison to the “noise of other fours, and even of inferior sixes.”

The most expensive Plymouth PA in the 1931 lineup was the Convertible Coupe, listing for $825.

The car featured a Double Drop chassis and a 2768-millimetre (109-inch) wheelbase. Other standard equipment included Free Wheeling, “which permits quick and noiseless shifting of gears in all forward speeds without declutching. Easy-Shift transmission, permitted drivers to go from “second to high and back again at speeds of 25 (40 km) and 45 (80 km) miles an hour without clashing or grinding gears” Safety-Steel Bodies made the structure more rigid and more quiet. Plymouth salesmen could brag that this was the only car in its price class to offer internal hydraulic brakes.

Visit my old car website at: The Oilspot Eh!

The Business Roadster listed for $655, while the Roaster with a rumble seat carried a price tag of $760. The Business Coupe sold for $775, the Four-door Sedan could be had for $825 and the snazzy Convertible Coupe cost $825. All prices were f.o.b. Windsor, Ontario and included five wire wheels with freight and taxes tacked on. A total of 2,576 units of the Plymouth PA were shipped during 1931.

A 1931 Dodge Brothers truck.

Making bold moves in a miserable market, Chrysler Canada aggressively added Dodge Brothers trucks to its list of domestically build products and then began producing the luxurious Chrysler Imperials in its Windsor plant, too.

A 1931 Chrysler Imperial dual cowl Phaeton.

To keep the dealer body solvent, executives in Windsor wisely made Plymouth available through all of Chrysler Canada’s dealerships. Every Chrysler, Dodge and DeSoto dealer in the Dominion carried the stylish, inexpensive Plymouth. Those folks who still had a few bucks didn’t need crystal balls to see the value in Plymouth and snapped them up. 

Records show that 3,222 units were built domestically and 14 Model U and 46 of the Model PA were imported from the USA for domestic sale. Another long-ago entry indicates that 3,378 Plymouth passenger cars were shipped from Windsor in 1931. The latter figure included vehicles built outside of Canada for trans-shipment to customers in other parts of the British Empire.

Visit my old car website at: The Oilspot Eh!

Copyright James C. Mays 2005
All rights reserved