Retro Friday: the Electric Vehicle Company, Maxwell, and Chrysler

1908 Columbia Electric car

In 1896, Henry G. Morris and Pedro G. Salom, makers of the Electrobat taxi cab, formed the Electric Carriage & Wagon Company. Nobody knew that gasoline was the future of the car then: the very first cars, made in the 18th century, had been steamers. Karl Benz made several copies of a single gasoline-burning car in 1885, but then Thomas Edison had opened the world’s first generating station for commercial and residential buyers even earlier—and electricity seemed like it might be the fuel of the future.
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4-26 is Hemi Day 2023

426 Hemi

Created solely for racing, the famed 426 Hemi was a cross between Chrysler’s first V8 engines, which had hemispherical heads, and the big Cross-Ram Wedge engines which were winning on the street but failing in NASCAR—the company’s second completely new V8 design. The engine people believed that the wedge engines would have an edge if they … Read more

Flashback Friday: Chrysler Engineering makes Mercury, Saturn rockets a reality

Chrysler and the Saturn rockets from the Apollo missions

Chrysler’s role in creating the Moon rockets has long been ignored; it’s not even mentioned on multiple Wikipedia pages which ignore the prime contractor but mention Rockwell and Boeing. Yet Chrysler did not just have a hand in creating the Saturn V vehicles used in the Apollo missions; they were the prime contractor for these and for the Redstone missiles which came before. 

Chrysler started working with the combined Army-Air Force rocketry program from its earliest days, running the Warren, Michigan factory which produced the Redstone missiles. While the rocket engines and fuselages were produced by other companies, Chrysler coordinated them, put them together, designed and produced some of the electronic control and ground systems, and provided part of the ground support crews. The photo above, from the 1965 Chrysler Annual Report, clearly shows ground crew members wearing Chrysler shirts. 

Motales recently recovered the story of Chrysler’s role in rocketry, including their work in developing digital telemetry for the Apollo missions. From the Redstones to the final launch (of Skylab), Chrysler was America’s chosen leader in aerospace. The company only left the business when NASA rejected its space shuttle design. (See https://www.motales.com/chrysler-corp/aerospace-defense/rockets-by-chrysler.php for more) [Read more…]

Mopar Flashback Friday: Introducing the New 1968 Dodge Charger

1968 Dodge Charger

The Dodge Charger was introduced as its own model line for the 1966 model year, and while the ‘66 and ‘67 models sold well enough, the debut of the second generation for the 1968 model year really led to the boom in popularity for the legendary nameplate. As we all know, the second generation Charger, … Read more

Mopar Flashback Friday: I Built a Dodge…I Built a Dodge!

1956 Dodge Lancer

This week’s Mopar Flashback Friday takes us back to 1956, with a classic marketing video which showcases the Dodge Lancer. This video is very unlike any modern car commercial, as it is more than two minutes long, it doesn’t actually mention the name of any vehicles and it has a unique theme song that makes … Read more

Mopar Flashback Friday: 1970 Dodge Challenger Commercial

Dodge Challenger Ad

The Dodge brand showcases its history better than any modern brand in the US market, with classic colors, classic trim names, classic packages and even some marketing campaigns that hearken back to the early days of the muscle car. From the Shaker hood atop a Hemi engine to colors like B5 Blue or Go Mango … Read more

The Original Demon was Almost the Dodge Beaver

Demon Badge

The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon set the standard by which all other American muscle cars are judged and frankly, it seems unlikely that a factory-built Mustang or Camaro will ever come close to truly rivaling the 840-horsepower, 9-second Mopar monster. When you mentioned a Dodge Demon in most online groups today, most people will … Read more

Reporting on Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports is the most popular and most trusted name in general-population reviews, but how good are they with cars? The magazine and its annual car book have been both praised and critiqued for years; I did a large critique on Allpar one or two decades ago, and recently revisited it. Not to turn this … Read more

Chrysler resurgent: 1992-97

Recently, a Chrysler employee posted part of an internal brochure, and it reminded me of the time when Chrysler came back with a vengeance. This was not the first time, as most readers know; the company has had an absurd number of comebacks under charismatic leaders—under Walter Flanders, Walter Chrysler, Lee Iacocca, Bob Lutz, and … Read more

1949 Dodge cars: practical at the wrong time

see the 1949 Dodge cars

The “completely new” 1949 Dodges, like the lower Plymouths and the higher DeSotos and Chryslers, were created to the specifications of Walter Chrysler’s protegé,  K.T. Keller. K.T. was a great wartime leader for Chrysler Corporation, ordering daily miracles for the United States military; the company did an incredible job of producing anti-aircraft guns, aircraft parts … Read more