MoTales’ Chrysler History, People, and Such: In Chronological Order

Electric Mopars: Chrysler BEVs, From the 1880s to 2022
A brief story of Chrysler’s largely unknown and ignored battery-electric cars

Maxwell, US Motor, Standard: pre-Chrysler, 1904 to 1925
How Maxwell Motors morphed into U.S. Motor Company and Standard Motor, then finally became Chrysler Corporation in 1925 after making Chryslers for a year

Dodge Brothers vs Ford as Employers
Hint: the Dodges gave out free beer and Ford hired thugs

Dodge Main: Sturdy car creation complex
Multi-story car factory

Chrysler Firsts of the Carburetor Era
Pushing the entire industry forward

How Ram was born of Avard Fairbanks and Dodge
One of the very few marques to be named after its own ornaments, and how that came to pass

Sintered metals, Chrysler Oilite, and Amplex
The story of how the right man in the right lab led to a major advance in metals technology

Jack Benny’s Maxwell (Chrysler Connections)
How Jack Benny ended up driving (on radio, TV, and the big screen) the predecessor of Plymouth and the Chrysler Four

The Major Bowes Imperial (Beautifully Restored Car)
Inside the special 1937 Chrysler Imperial limousine made for Major Edward Bowes, the top radio personality of his day

Restoring Della Chrysler’s One-Off Car
An anachronistic luxury car for Della Chrysler: the fate of the 1937 LeBaron

Chrysler’s war efforts—the book series
Wesley Stout’s series of books about Chrysler’s stunning World War II contributions

Building Trenton Engine
to Make Classic V8s and Air Raid Sirens

Do you know these people from the Class of 1951?
Seriously, tell us!

Making V8 engines
Trenton in pictures

Meet the Cost Estimator: How Mopars Were Made (and Estimated)
Creating Chrysler's cost estimating department, 1950-1989, and a story or two

Tool engineers: Making the machines that made the cars
Inside one of the most skilled factory jobs of the 1940s-1960s

What was in a 1950s Chrysler factory
A partial listing of all the things that Chrysler factories needed - especially Dodge Main

The Chrysler Windsor Hybrid: Car-Plane Hybrid
Giving new meaning to "state of the art"

Chrysler Corporation’s organization: 1953
How Chrysler was organized in 1953, with explanations for modern readers

How was Chrysler Engineering organized in 1952-1954
(and what problems that would bring)

Chrysler President L.L. “Tex” Colbert
Modernizing Chrysler, the 1957 debacle, the supplier scandal, and the Valiant

Building and Running the Slant Six Line at Trenton
Making the legendary Leaning Tower of Power

Unibody: Behind the Sudden 1960 Move
A stunning, massive shift—the surprising reason they did it

Mopar alternators: a major gain over generators
How Chrysler pioneered the alternator, and why it mattered

Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge ads of 1960: slant six, unibody, and torsion bars
How 1960 Chrysler Corporation ads focused on their dramatic car advances

Mopar engine ads of the 1960s: slant six and big V8s
Dodge and Plymouth ads featuring engines and slant six models

Birth of the Chrysler Newport: 1960-62
How the Chrysler Newport was born; the first generation of the Chrysler-styled DeSoto

Trenton Engine milestones
1964 Hemi to Pentastar

Tales From the Factory: Matching Pistons and Blocks
How the factory managed precision problems, back in the day

Behind the Fratzog
Memorable 1960s-70s Icon Returning for 2025

Chrysler rockets from nuclear missiles to the Moon: Quick review
Chrysler's role as the primary contractor and developer on the Moon rockets and the earlier Redstone missiles

Mopars running on water: Chrysler Marine
The best, most innovative boats you could buy

That huge Chrysler: Everything We Make ad
Taking you anywhere you want to go - including 238,000 miles straight up

Inside the Monroney: 1970 Plymouth Suburban
Explaining every aspect of the 1970 Plymouth car price sticker

Chrysler-Mopar Automatic Temperature Control, 1968 to 1993
From the earliest air conditioners to the digital ’90s, with overviews, pics, and tech

1971 Chrysler Car and Truck Sales in 1971
versus GM and Ford

Dodge Dude: An Odd Name and Campaign for a Fully Capable Pickup Truck
The 1971 Sweptline pickup and its Don Knotts-led ad campaign

Behind the (failed) 1972 effort to fix Chrysler’s product strategy
What might have been?

When Chrysler made cars in LA
The westernmost Mopar plant

1973 Dart Swinger and 1974 Dart Sport: Inside the Monroney
Diving into classic Dodge price stickers - what it all meant, what it all cost in today's dollars

1973 Dodge Taxi brochure (and Mopar cabs)
The brochure and the full story: Dodge’s 1973 taxi lineup and the company’s history with cabs

1974 Dodge Dart-and-Challenger Foldout
Dodge’s seemingly odd 1974 Challenger and Dart brochure

Making Cars in Canada: Factory Photos
A pictorial with some captions

Mopar Engine-Based Windsor Factory Photos
Putting engines together in Canada

Diesel Slant Six: mo’ power, lo’ pollution
A solution Chrysler sorely needed

Wankel engines, Jack Smith, and Chrysler
The Road Runner creator explores a new engine (updated 2022)

Computerized cars: Lean Burn and beyond
Much-maligned technologies they still use

Working for Chrysler president John Riccardo
An insider's story

Off the Line: People Doing Other Things in Chrysler Canada Plants
A pictorial of the labs, factory, and computer control areas

Computerized Chrysler, 1980: Systems Beyond CADCAM
How they managed production and such with computers

Stories from Chrysler’s man on the Mitsubishi Board
Iacocca and working in Japan

1983 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue (brochure and info)
Advertising the Chrysler M-bodies

1983 Dodge Diplomat in Canada
Digging into the brochure and the car

Mopar ashtrays and candy dishes
Memorabilia stamped of stainless steel: Chrysler oddities

Making Minivans in Windsor
Chrysler factory photos

Making Mopar Vans in Windsor
Dodge B-van factory photos

USA vs Japan: plant changes for a new Chrysler (1989-94)
How Chrysler rescued itself

Chrysler Firsts of the Modern Era
When Chrysler had a global influence

Electric minivans (the originals): TEVan and EPIC
Chrysler invented the electric minivan - three generations of them

Chrysler Corporation USA Sales in 1991
versus GM, Ford, and Others

Creating the Chrysler Technology Center (CTC)
The long story of the massive complex

Sticker and receipt: 1993 Plymouth Sundance
Diving into the Monroney price sticker and bill of sale for a 1993 Plymouth Sundance

Innovation factory: Chrysler Technology Center (CTC)
The most advanced engineering facility in the world for years

Chrysler FAQ, Updated and Modernized
1994 rec.autos.makers.chrysler newsgroup FAQ, updated and reprinted

Invention Factory: Liberty Group
Center for innovation or waste of time? You decide

Digital factories
Saving money and time by making it online

Chrysler CADCAM, Dassault CATIA, and NX
Making cars with computers

1990s Chrysler: Company on a Mission
One of the few good uses of mission statements!

Chrysler’s flexible manufacturing: Impressive but perhaps underused
Making different cars on the same line, without pausing to change tools: the wonders of Mopar's flex system

SCORE: Saving billions with supplier ideas
A true systems approach yielded major advances

Extended enterprise: Bringing in the suppliers
Saving money and making better cars

1997 “Drive the Showroom” Package
Chrysler’s call to auto writers: Change your mind, we’re new!

The Walter P. Chrysler Museum, 1999-2012
Inside the museum which recalled Chrysler’s many accomplishments (and some of its follies)

Trenton Engine: Building New V6 Lines in 2000
A pictorial with explanations and stories

Tailfins: The Entire Web Site
The old Tailfins.com web site, entirely reproduced for your viewing pleasure!!

The Car as Companion
One Family’s Multi-Generational Journey with Mopar

Brampton: Making big Mopars, then STLA Medium
From muscle cars to the new midsize series

Mopar clubs: the nationals
Our listing of national clubs with Web sites

Mopar plants: rumors, what they make, and what they made
Updated now and then

2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger: Range-Extended Electric Pickup Truck
692 mile range, 14,000 pounds towing, 4.4 quarters: inside the unique 2025 Ramchargers

2025 Ram 1500 REV: Ram’s First Electric Pickup Truck
All the info, all the pics of the first electric pickup to tow 14,000 pounds

Things we couldn’t get into chronological order

Chrysler: making Grant, Lee, and Sherman Tanks
(and the big Multibank engines)

Chrysler press releases over the years
With many examples

Quick stories from Chrysler’s past
Volume 1: from a dyno tech, cost estimator, marketer, and product manager

Quick stories from Chrysler’s past (Vol. 2)
Breaking brakes, the Chair, log manifold, and Orvis

Quick stories from Chrysler’s past, volume 3
Designing turbine blades, Design flooring, logos and badges, pentastars, and Mitsubishi

Mopar car names: Star Trek, royalty, and crazy long
Cars named from Star Trek, hotels, and royalty; and the absurdly long Dodge and Plymouth car names

Naming cars
How Chrysler has named cars, with stories of some classics (Demon, Valiant, Volare, and so on)

Chrysler History, People, and Such In Rough Chronological Order
Chrysler Corporation, Maxwell, DaimlerChrysler, etc - histories and methods sorted roughly by year

Mopar / Chrysler People and Stories
From Jack Benny to the tool engineers: a Motales directory

Mopar brochures, ads, press releases, and such
MoTales’ Index of Chrysler Literature and Such

Chrysler plants, labs, and other places of interest
In-depth stories with many photos from inside Chrysler labs, plants, and other facilities—from many years

Chrysler Technologies and Such
Chrysler innovations from the 1920s on: firsts, electric cars, Oilite, Amplex, CAD/CAM, Wankel, and such

Creating and making cars, organizational methods and change at Chrysler
Organizational change, ways they engineered and built cars, and other Mopar methods

MoTales’ Chrysler History, People, and Such In Rough Chronological Order

Things we couldn’t get into chronological order