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Century of Chrysler! Inside the centennial book!
Oct 2, 2024
Get a first look at the new book Century of Chrysler, covering the first hundred years of the iconic marque! Learn how Chrysler came about, who made and sold the first Chrysler cars (and when), why they should have been made years before they were, and how the Chrysler brand evolved over time - and what hurt it the most! (Hint: it wasn’t the K-cars!)
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Three guys named Zader, Skelton and Brear started putting together a brand new car while they were
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working at Willis under the direction of Walter Chrysler. That car grew into the first Chrysler
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They didn't make it but eventually Walter Chrysler led Maxwell Motors and they made the first
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Chryslers and the first ones were sold in January 1924 to a public that was very eager to get more
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of them because they were special. They had four-wheel hydraulic brakes. One of the very few
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cars to have hydraulic brakes. The main ones sold to the public before that was the Kord
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and the Chrysler ones were tested in heat and cold and they were consistently good
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So they also had a very impressive engine designed for durability and reliability and smoothness
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but able to propel the new Chrysler at 70 miles per hour which if you know 1924 cars is a lot
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So it goes on sale January 1924. Here we are a century later. It is Chrysler Centennial
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2024. So to celebrate it we don't have any official celebrations because Chrysler isn't
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admitting it's 100 years old. I guess it's worried about its age. It's going to you know stay 39
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forever but we do have this lovely book A Century of Chrysler and this takes you through the story
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of Chrysler from before it was Chrysler. It takes you from the start of Maxwell. It takes you before
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the start of Maxwell really and it takes you up to the creation of the Chrysler and then all the
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way through to the current day. It's kind of U.S. centric. I do have other countries in there
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but it's mostly U.S. because this is where Chrysler was born and you can see lots and
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lots of illustrations. Let's see as we go through the years and I cover the 300 letter cars but I
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also cover the everyday cars which Chrysler sold for years which kept them going all the way up to
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today. Now this book which I might remind you is the only way to celebrate Chrysler Centennial
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right now unless you want to have a party in your backyard which I would endorse. It is available
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in four versions two e-books two print books. So paperbacks $33 at Amazon $34 at Barnes & Noble. Why
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Because Barnes & Noble charges more for printing. So $33 at Amazon is your best buy. $39 for the
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hardcover at Amazon if you really like hardcovers the content is exactly the same. Now in the e-books
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the pictures are grouped together to make it easier to read and there's fewer pictures because Amazon
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has a limit on the size of an e-book that you can store with them. $8.99 for an Apple e-book suitable
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for iPad or iPhone probably easier on the iPad and then there's the Kindle version is $9.99
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You know when I put this book together I tried to draw on everything that I had learned about
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Chrysler. I started what became Allpar back in 93 or 94 and I was working on it through 2017
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and then I started Motels and work with Patrick at Stowpower and I've done all these videos
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So I've learned a lot but I've also met a lot of people. I've met some of the people who
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led product development at Chrysler who were responsible for some major parts and we and I
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talked and I tried to integrate everything that I learned into this book to give you multiple
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perspectives and I used my organizational research and consulting background as well
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to try to get into what was going on. So it's a book about Chrysler the mark not Chrysler the
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corporation. I learned a lot about what Chrysler was and what it wasn't and I learned about how
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what it was changed over time but there was always some core that was in common and I learned about
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what really damaged the Chrysler image over time and changed it but I also learned that it stayed
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surprisingly strong for a surprisingly long amount of time and really survived a lot of things
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that you might think would have really damaged it quite a bit. So that's the book. I urge you to go
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out and buy it. You can see all the links to buy it at dave.zatz.us slash century.php or you can
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just go onto Amazon and do a search for Century Chrysler Zatz if you want to. All right this is
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Dave from OTAIL signing off and oh that's one last thing if you want an autographed copy
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there is a thread on allpar.com and I will get one to you as soon as I can
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So just let me know and I'll see you soon
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