Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation

by Charles K. Hyde

Overview

A comprehensive history of the highs and lows of the Chrysler Corporation and its lasting impact on the automotive industry.

Chrysler has had an impressive list of technological "firsts" throughout the years—including the Chrysler Six of 1924 and front-wheel-drive vehicles in the '70s and '80s, to name just two. While the company has catered well to a variety of consumers, it has also come to the brink of financial ruin more than once in its seventy-five-year history.

In Riding the Roller Coaster, author Charles K. Hyde takes readers into the board room and onto the factory lines to tell the story behind Chrysler's products, people, and performance. Outlining their history from the founding of the company through the major merger with Daimler-Benz, Hyde recounts the ups and downs of Chrysler's monumental success turned colossal financial failure and sharp recovery. He pays special attention to the company's leadership in automotive engineering, its styling successes and failures, and its changing management, including a special look at automotive powerhouses including Walter P. Chrysler and Lee Iacocca.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814352205
Publisher:	Wayne State University Press
Publication date:	05/13/2025
Series:	Great Lakes Books
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Charles K. Hyde is professor emeritus of history at Wayne State University. He has authored numerous books, including Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II and The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy (both Wayne State University Press), the latter of which was selected as a Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan.

Table of Contents

1. From Railroad Shop-Sweeper to Second-in-Command at General Motors
2. Roots: Willys-Overland, Chalmers, and Maxwell
3. Walter Chrysler's Car and His Company, 1924-27
4. The Dodge Brothers and Their Company
5. Dodge Brothers in the 1920s
6. Success and Struggle, 1928-33
7. Chrysler in the Mid-1930s
8. Chrysler in the Late 1930s
9. Chrysler in the Second World War
10. Postwar Recovery and Crisis, 1945-50
11. The Tex Colbert Era, 1950-61
12. The Lynn Townsend Era: The Fat Years, 1961-68
13. The Lynn Townsend Era: The Lean Years, 1969-79
14. Lee to the Rescue, 1978-83
15. Lee's Company, 1984-92
16. Chrysler into DaimlerChrysler, 1993-2002
Conclusion: Chrysler Corporation: A Retrospective

What People are Saying About This

Curator, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library - Mark Patrick

Charles Hyde has written the first authoritative and complete scholarly history of the Chrysler Corporation. This cogent and insightful work details the company's antecedent business roots in early automobile ventures and traces Chrysler's activities through economic cycles, war production, postwar struggles and successes, and finally its merger with Daimler-Benz. A rich business history made more colorful by the self-styled leadership of Walter Chrysler and Lee Iacocca.

Pitzer College - Rudi Volti

As the title indicates, Charles Hyde's history of the Chrysler Corporation takes the reader on a historical journey marked by exhilarating climbs, severe descents, and disorienting changes of direction. The meticulous scholarship never gets in the way of a good story, one that shows how the business cycle, changing consumer tastes, governmental regulations, and management decisions impelled the wild ride taken by America's third largest automobile firm.

Michigan Technological University - Larry Lankton

Charles Hyde's book, Riding the Roller Coaster, is a welcome addition to anyone's library of automotive history. This detailed examination of how an eminent 20th century corporation went about its business ranges from the origins of Chrysler (and even its predecessor firms) right up to the modern times of DaimlerChrysler. This volume will serve as a standard reference on the history of an American auto maker, its successes and its failures.

Editorial Reviews

Carefully documented, well-written, and full of detail, [this book by] history professor Charles K. Hyde brings facts and figures together into the often-astonishing story of Chrysler, right up to the merger with Daimler in 1998.

Old Cars Magazine

Hyde provides the necessary context that helps explain the activities and implications of the personalities and economic events that defined Chrysler's successes and failures. This learned, comprehensive, and interesting business history offers an appreciation for the consequences of corporate policies whether those policies were proactive or reactive. Highly recommended.

Choice

Riding the Roller Coaster is a carefully researched, well-written, attractively illustrated, and comprehensive company history of a firm that has received far less attention from historians, economists, and other scholars than its larger rivals in the American automobile industry. Hyde has made a significant contribution to Michigan's industrial history and helped fill a notable gap in the history of the American automobile trade.

Michigan Historical Review

With exquisite scholarship and a deft pen, Charles K. Hyde tells the story of the history of Chrysler.

Classic Car Club of America

As the title indicates, Charles Hyde's history of the Chrysler Corporation takes the reader on a historical journey marked by exhilarating climbs, severe descents, and disorienting changes of direction. The meticulous scholarship never gets in the way of a good story, one that shows how the business cycle, changing consumer tastes, governmental regulations, and management decisions impelled the wild ride taken by America's third largest automobile firm.

Pitzer College - Rudi Volti

Charles Hyde's book, Riding the Roller Coaster, is a welcome addition to anyone's library of automotive history. This detailed examination of how an eminent 20th century corporation went about its business ranges from the origins of Chrysler (and even its predecessor firms) right up to the modern times of DaimlerChrysler. This volume will serve as a standard reference on the history of an American auto maker, its successes and its failures.

Michigan Technological University - Larry Lankton

Charles Hyde has written the first authoritative and complete scholarly history of the Chrysler Corporation. This cogent and insightful work details the company's antecedent business roots in early automobile ventures and traces Chrysler's activities through economic cycles, war production, postwar struggles and successes, and finally its merger with Daimler-Benz. A rich business history made more colorful by the self-styled leadership of Walter Chrysler and Lee Iacocca.

Curator, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library - Mark Patrick

With exquisite scholarship and a deft pen, Charles Hyde tells the story [of the history of Chrysler].

Classic Car Club of America - Beverly Rae Kimes