April 30, 2009 - Chrysler History in Detroit's Life, Detroit MI

Chrysler has been a key to life in Detroit over many colorful years

Under a variety of names, from Chrysler Corp. to DaimlerChrysler Aktiengesellschaft, Chrysler has played a leading role in the life of Detroit through eight decades of boom-and-bust cycles that produced some of America's most memorable vehicles and grandiose personalities.

Its very survival in question, it embarks on a new chapter, partnering with Italy's Fiat in an enterprise that is eventually to be mostly owned by the UAW.

The youngest, smallest and least-stable of the Big Three, Chrysler made products that included the groundbreaking 1984 minivan, the Dodge Viper and Plymouth Prowler two-seaters; the big-grille, small-window 300C; the Jeep Cherokee and Dodge Ram pickup; the Imperial and the DeSoto and the exquisitely engineered 1934 Airflow, with its voluptuous curves; the Hemi, the General Lee, the 'Cuda, the Road Runner Super Bird and the Dodge Charger that lost out to a Mustang in the famous "Bullitt" chase scene.

But for every vehicle that captured the public imagination, Chrysler also delivered such stinkers as the Dodge Rampage or Plymouth Scamp that figured in the financial jams that plagued much of Chrysler's existence.

In his 2003 history of the company, called "Riding the Roller Coaster," Charles Hyde wrote: "Chrysler Corporation has historically served as a haven for automotive malcontents, mavericks and misfits, many coming over from rival companies. Chrysler's dashing, daring, risk-taking leaders achieved monumental successes and colossal failures."

Perhaps the most memorable predicament came in the late 1970s, when, under Lee Iacocca, Chrysler escaped bankruptcy with loans guaranteed by the U.S. government and concessions from the UAW and suppliers plus job cuts.

That drama transformed the cocky, cigar-smoking Iacocca into one of the world's most-famous pitchmen.

"If you can find a better car -- buy it!" he famously declared in one TV spot.

Chrysler, more than Dearborn-centric Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., whose plants were spread across the region, was especially woven into the fabric of Detroit, especially on the east side. In 1973, the company had more than three dozen installations south of 8 Mile Road, including its headquarters in Highland Park.

The legendary Dodge Main factory, built in 1914, loomed over the working-class bungalows in Hamtramck.

"Over its long history, as many as 250,000 people worked in that grime-encrusted, echoing, awesome place, representing every conceivable nationality and race," wrote labor historian Steve Babson. "Poles, Lithuanians, Appalachians, Arabs, blacks -- each trudged in ... lunch pails in hand, dreams for a better life pinned to the time cards they punched."

The dream did not come easy.

In 1937, 22,000 workers kicked out management and staged a sit-down strike inside Dodge Main that triggered a series of other strikes and helped turn Detroit into one of the world's foremost union towns.

In 1968, Chrysler plants gave birth to the incendiary if short-lived Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, a black-nationalist crusade that battled the company and UAW over racial discrimination and working conditions.

That turbulent era coincided with revolutionary developments in vehicle design -- "muscle cars" -- that helped the bottom line and gave the company a certain amount of street cred.

As Richard Petty was winning NASCAR races in Plymouths, Chrysler produced vehicles that combined Hemi engines, NASCAR-inspired designs and bold colors such as Vitamin C Orange, Go Mango and Lemon Twist.

Chrysler has a complicated genealogy, but one of its principal ancestors was the company run by the Dodge brothers.

John and Horace Dodge were brilliant mechanics and manufacturers whose auto business was purchased by Walter Chrysler in 1928.

Outside the factory, the Dodges picked fights and went on drunken binges across Detroit. John Dodge once used a gun to force the owner of a saloon to dance on his bar.

But the Dodge families and their wives eventually melded into Detroit's auto aristocracy, as did their yachts, including the sublime Delpine, and their homes, notably 110-room Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills, and the long-demolished Rose Terrace in Grosse Pointe.

Horace Dodge was instrumental in the founding of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and led the fund-raising for the construction of Orchestra Hall. John Dodge was active in the Republican Party and a key member of the Detroit Water Commission when it was helping the region to grow.

In more recent years, Chrysler gave millions to such cultural institutions as the DSO, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Michigan Opera Theatre.

All the charity, the mansions and the legends, of course, come back to the car.

"I gave the public not only quality," founder Walter Chrysler said of his products, "but beauty, speed, comfort in riding, style, power, quick acceleration, easy steering, all at a low price."

Original Story - Detroit Free Press