From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Chrysler's business activities, new car development, and competition with Ford and Chevrolet.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 19\4\ Scan336 | |
| Date | 7th August 1931 guessed | |
| with a mechanical improvement that is stated to eliminate the vibration common to that number of cylinders. Other innovations include transmission changes, a new type of free wheeling (making it the cheapest car to have this feature) and features of body and chassis formerly found in the more highly priced Chrysler cars. It is Chrysler's bid for that share of the automobile business now dominated by Ford and Chevrolet. Factory schedules are highly indicative of the effort which is intended to be made. The June output is already estimated at 11,000 cars and the July schedule is placed at 15,000, which it may exceed. In the Plymouth plant 7,500 men are now stated to be employed where there were 4,500 in May. An increase of even 2,000 over this is expected. The ten million dollar investment mentioned is apparently divided as follows: to supply 10,000 dealers with display and demonstrator cars, $7,500,000; machinery and dies, $2,000,000; experimental work, $500,000. Under the heading of "Out Steps Chrysler", "Time," a weekly news-magazine comments: " A Manhattan automobile editor was blindfolded last week, taken for four rides. Three times he guessed the number of cylinders in the car. On the fourth ride he mistook a four for an eight. Happy over his error were the officials of the third biggest United States motor company. The four cylinder car which felt like an eight was a new Plymouth. Chief claim of the new car will be its vibrationlessness, resulting from a patented development which Chrysler engineers call a basic change in construction." Chrysler has always, since buying Maxwell, had a four which competed to a limited extent with Ford and Chevrolet. His success with the public, however, has always been largely based on a car with newsworthy selling features made well-known through clever advertising. The new car seems to have these features, and a determined selling campaign, for which Chrysler is noted, might easily make him a much bigger factor in the field than hitherto. That Ford can successfully be competed against has already been shown, as has been mentioned above. Chrysler's great sales strides in the past and particularly in 1928 are by no means forgotten in the motor industry, and it was last week debated whether the new car will create a similar sensation. 3. | ||