Chrysler By The Decade

The 1940's

1940 started off with Walter Chrysler's death following a long illness. But by now Chrysler was one of the most sound companies in the world.

Despite the fact that Chrysler was gone, the company continued chalking up innovations. A major one was Fluid Drive. The design discarded the conventional flywheel for a fluid coupling torque converter and was one of the earliest production fore-runners of the automatic transmission.

By the mid-1940's car production had slowed because WW II began to cast its shadow across the world - one maker, however, saw a boom in production. That maker was Willys-Overland, who introduced a new - and, most through, ugly vehicle - the General Purpose Vehicle.

In June 1940, the US Army called on Willys to design a tree-passenger mechanical mule, with a minimum 40 horsepower and weighing no more than 1200 pounds. The catch: the company was given five days to design the vehicle.

Nonetheless, the design specifications were met on time and the prototypes, complete with a two-speed transfer case, were delivered by September. The only problem: the original GPV was about 700 pounds overweight.

Throughout the next few years, the GPV - or Jeep as it come to be known - was a great hit. By 1946, Willys copyrighted the name "Jeep".

Although Chrysler would not take over the name and production of Jeeps until the 1980's, the heritage and world-wide renown of Jeep are now a major part of Chrysler Corporation. In fact, according to J.D. Powers and Associates, Jeep is the second-most recognizable name-brand in the world, second only to Coca-Cola.

By the close of the 1940's Chrysler was back to making cars - and leading the way. Chrysler's new innovation for 1949 was the introduction of the all-steel body station wagon, which features that added safety of a padded leather dash board.