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(More customer reviews)My mother always said that the good things always came last. And so it is with this biography of Walter P. Chrysler. As I sit and look at the books on my library shelves, I find volumes of information on the men who built the automobile industry. Henry Ford, William Durant, the Dodge Brothers, etc. but there were two notable men missing--Charles Nash and Walter Chrysler.
The only work on Chrysler was his own ghost written autobiography which first appeared in serialized form in the Saturday Evening Post back in 1937--and reprinted in book form in 1950, ten years after Chrysler's death.
I was fortunate to meet Vincent Curcio, the author of this new work on Walter Chrysler in 1994, at Walter Chrysler's boyhood home in Ellis, Kansas. Six years is a long time to wait but the wait was worth it. Vincent Curcio spent those six years traveling the country, visiting every place Walter Chrysler ever lived--considering his wunder lust while working for the railroads, Curcio had a lot of steps to cover. He was able to meet and interview old timers who had worked with or knew Walter Chrysler personally. Considering their age, this was a vital link to Chrysler that will soon be lost....
Curcio takes us from railroad town to railroad town, then to Chicago where Chrysler saw and fell in love with an ivory colored Locomobile car that he purchased and had shipped to his home in Oelwein, Iowa (after all, Chrysler did not know how to drive at that point!).
The book is rich in lore about Chrysler--how he moved from working on the railroad to building locomotives FOR the railroads--and his move to Flint, Michigan where he began working for Charles Nash at the giant Buick works. His clashes with GM founder William Durant led to his early retirement--a retirement that ended when nervous bankers asked him to salvage first the Willys Corporation and then Maxwell-Chalmers. The latter, of course, would be his stepping stone to building the Chrysler Corporation.
The book chronicles the rise of Chrysler Corporation, the building of the Chrysler Building in New York City and Chrysler's personal life. Its a warts and all story--from Chrysler's stock manipulations, to his million dollar mistress, to his run-ins with the law over illegal prohibition era booze and illegal taking of game. Every story you may have ever heard about Chrysler, or the cars he built, is in this book--and documented in detail.
Vincent Curcio's book is not an "easy" read. At over 600 pages you will not skim through it in a night or two. Its the size of a Bible--and for Chrysler fans, it will be the bible on Walter Chrysler for years to come. I highly recommend it.
(Note - portions of this review have been reprinted from the Plymouth Bulletin magazine, published by the Plymouth Owners Club, Inc and is used by permission)
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