Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Great Lakes Books)

Rating:
Summary: Well Done History of an Important American Company
Review: Books on the history of companies have never interested me much. When my friend told me he had finished writing his book on Chrysler, I cringed because I knew Charlie would expect me to read it. Poring through a boring company history was not something I looked forward to. But I figured I would bite the bullet and at least skim through it. My father and brother worked for Chrysler and my daughter is working there this summer as an interne. With the pathetic exception of a Ford Pinto, all the cars I have ever owned were Chryslers. So maybe by reading this book I would learn a something interesting about the company my family is associated with as laborers and the cars that I owned.

Much to my surprise I found this history of Chrysler to be very interesting and entertaining. Riding the Roller Coaster brings to life the history of Chrysler by focusing on the key people who contributed to the company's development, including Walter P. Chrysler and Lee Iacocca. Charlie covers labor issues, gives enough details of technological developments for a novice to follow along, and discusses all the important points of Chrysler's complex history even including the Redstone missile that my father first worked on when he joined the company. Charlie's analysis of the key people at Chrysler is balanced but he does not shy away from making critical observations. In his chapter discussing the "merger" between Chrysler and Daimler, Charlie does not hold his punches.

The roller coaster analogy is perfect. Reading through the ups and downs of Chrysler I reflected on how these changes affected my family and realized that we too, like other families of Chrysler workers, were riding this same roller coaster. This book helped put my experiences as a child of a Chrysler employee into perspective. I recall the times my dad was laid off or on strike and when my dad briefly moved us down to Louisiana so he could work at the Michaud plant where the Redstone missile production was transferred. Now I better understand these shifts in the fortunes of my family.

I also enjoyed reading about the introduction of the various car models, the story to their creation, their special features, problems some of them faced, technological achievements incorporated in others, their marketing success or failure, etc. It was fun to reflect on all the Chrysler products my family has owned over the years. The two-toned black and pink 1956 Plymouth Belvedere with the awesome tailfins that was totaled in an accident soon after my dad bought it. This is the first car I can remember. This was one of Chrysler's "Forward Look" models. The last car my dad owned was a K-car Plymouth Reliant that seemed like it would last forever and played such an important role in Chrysler's recent history. As the owner of four Minivans, reading about their development, introduction, and modification was informative.

But of all the Chrysler cars I can recall, the one I remember most particularly is the 1957 Dodge Coronet my dad owned with push button automatic transmission. Now I know that this was the Powerflite automatic transmission with pushbuttons on the dashboard introduced in 1956. I distinctly recall this car because when I was four or five I sat in my dad's car, innocently parked in our drive way, and continuously pushed the buttons until I succeeded in jamming them. My father had to call a tow truck, he was not pleased! Apparently the Chrysler engineers had not taken into account how fascinating the buttons were to a kid.

All in all Riding the Roller Coaster does a very good job reviewing the history of Chrysler and I would recommend it to anyone interested in this company. Charlie is a good writer and he makes it a pleasure to turn the pages. Reading this book was a pleasant walk through my family's association with Chrysler as both workers and consumers. If you can find a better book on Chrysler--buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Entire Chrysler story: Dodge/Plymouth/Exner/NASCAR/Up/Down..
Review: I really like old Chrysler and especially old Dodge cars and trucks and until I read this book I hadn't read the entire company story in one book before. There are other books about Walter Chrysler and the Dodge Bros. and Lee Iacocca and their cars but not everything told together in one big story before. This book starts at the very beginning of Walter Chrysler's career when he worked sweeping the floors at the Chicago & Great Western Railroad and how he was one of the early pioneers that saw the potential of the automobile. Eventually he went to work for Buick and learned the business so well he bought his own car company.

This book also tells the curious history of the Dodge Bros. and how they worked with Henry Ford but then decided to build their own Dodge Bros. cars which Chrysler later bought out. The book covers the Great Depression and how the company managed to get through it when so many other companies failed. The author also tells how Chrysler contributed to WWII by building military equipment. I especially liked the chapters on the '50's and 60's which tells about how Chrysler needed to build dealerships in the suburbs and sun belt states to survive--I hadn't ever read that before--and how they got Virgil Exner to design their cars. I really liked the parts on Carl Kiekhaefer and NASCAR in the mid-'50s.

I kind of get tired of reading about Lee Iacocca so I mostly skipped over that part and I'm not much interested in the later Chryslers except the Viper but I thought this was a really good book about the company. It's got some statistical tables and lots of illustrations. I met the author at my library where he spoke about his book and he was very friendly and signed my book.

Rating:
Summary: a major contribution to business and technological history
Review: In many ways the most interesting of the "Big Three" automobile manufacturers, the Chrysler Corporation has seen as many ups and downs as the evocative title of this volume suggests. Charles Hyde, a professor of history at Wayne State University, has produced a thorough, scholarly, yet highly readable book on a company that was the second largest producer of automobiles in North America at several points in its long history and was nearly out of business at others. The main thread of this fascinating story begins with the formation of a new automobile company by Walter P. Chrysler in 1925 and ends shortly after the merger of Chrysler and Daimler-Benz in 1998. However, Hyde has also given us detailed coverage of the developments that led up to the formation.

This is primarily a business history with a focus on corporate management and the marketing of automobiles. It is also a study of Chrysler products and the technology that created them. Hyde is both an economic historian and an industrial archaeologist. His understanding of assembly line production and the architecture of automobile plants is second to none. He says in his preface that "The origins of this book go back to late 1980, when I took on the monumental task of documenting the sprawling Dodge Main factory complex in Hamtramck, Michigan, before its demolition."

Hyde has filled an important need by writing the definitive history of the Chrysler Corporation. This is much more than a synthesis of existing scholarship. Most of his
interpretation is based on original archival research. Among the many significant historical contributions is his coverage of Dodge Brothers, which became a key part of Chrysler in 1928. Also very impressive is Hyde's discussion of the Chrysler Airflow (1934-1937), a major advance in engineering but a failure in style and sales. He even devotes an entire chapter to Chrysler's amazingly effective shift to military production for World War II.

The fascinating characters in this book give it a vitality lacking in most business histories. Hyde provides a new look at Walter P. Chrysler, one that sometimes differs from the image that this dynamic captain of industry tried to project in his autobiography. Those who need another fix of Lee Iacocca stories will not be disappointed. We also learn a great deal about such important but often overlooked figures as Carl Breer and Virgil Exner, who had so much to do
with the form and function of Chrysler products.

Riding the Roller Coaster should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the automobile industry. Serious scholars will welcome the new information and insights that Hyde delivers in every chapter. Those who simply love cars or want to understand the business strategies that produce them will also be pleased by this fine book.

Rating:
Summary: a major contribution to business and technological history
Review: In many ways the most interesting of the "Big Three" automobile manufacturers, the Chrysler Corporation has seen as many ups and downs as the evocative title of this volume suggests. Charles Hyde, a professor of history at Wayne State University, has produced a thorough, scholarly, yet highly readable book on a company that was the second largest producer of automobiles in North America at several points in its long history and was nearly out of business at others. The main thread of this fascinating story begins with the formation of a new automobile company by Walter P. Chrysler in 1925 and ends shortly after the merger of Chrysler and Daimler-Benz in 1998. However, Hyde has also given us detailed coverage of the developments that led up to the formation.

This is primarily a business history with a focus on corporate management and the marketing of automobiles. It is also a study of Chrysler products and the technology that created them. Hyde is both an economic historian and an industrial archaeologist. His understanding of assembly line production and the architecture of automobile plants is second to none. He says in his preface that "The origins of this book go back to late 1980, when I took on the monumental task of documenting the sprawling Dodge Main factory complex in Hamtramck, Michigan, before its demolition."

Hyde has filled an important need by writing the definitive history of the Chrysler Corporation. This is much more than a synthesis of existing scholarship. Most of his
interpretation is based on original archival research. Among the many significant historical contributions is his coverage of Dodge Brothers, which became a key part of Chrysler in 1928. Also very impressive is Hyde's discussion of the Chrysler Airflow (1934-1937), a major advance in engineering but a failure in style and sales. He even devotes an entire chapter to Chrysler's amazingly effective shift to military production for World War II.

The fascinating characters in this book give it a vitality lacking in most business histories. Hyde provides a new look at Walter P. Chrysler, one that sometimes differs from the image that this dynamic captain of industry tried to project in his autobiography. Those who need another fix of Lee Iacocca stories will not be disappointed. We also learn a great deal about such important but often overlooked figures as Carl Breer and Virgil Exner, who had so much to do
with the form and function of Chrysler products.

Riding the Roller Coaster should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the automobile industry. Serious scholars will welcome the new information and insights that Hyde delivers in every chapter. Those who simply love cars or want to understand the business strategies that produce them will also be pleased by this fine book.

Rating:
Summary: Entire Chrysler story: Dodge/Plymouth/Exner/NASCAR/Up/Down..
Review: This book is fine for someone who has no previous knowledge of the subject. However, for anyone who has read other materials on this topic, this book had nothing new to say, even though there was much that could be said, particularly of the post-Iacocca and post-DC merger eras.

For my money, Moritz' and Seaman's "Going For Broke" remains the best book on the history of the old Chrysler Corp., even though that book is now 23 years old.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing new
Review: This book is fine for someone who has no previous knowledge of the subject. However, for anyone who has read other materials on this topic, this book had nothing new to say, even though there was much that could be said, particularly of the post-Iacocca and post-DC merger eras.

For my money, Moritz' and Seaman's "Going For Broke" remains the best book on the history of the old Chrysler Corp., even though that book is now 23 years old.