Model names come from many locations, however one of many best methods to determine a picture is to borrow the identify of an evocative location: assume Ferrari with the yachts of the Italian Riviera’s Portofino harbour, Seat with the occasion island of Ibiza, Bentley with the enduring Le Mans racing straight of Mulsanne or Chrysler with the tower blocks and avenue crime of Croydon.
Okay, sorry, that was imply – and extra to the purpose, Chrysler did so within the Thirties, when Croydon wasn’t just a few London borough however an vital industrial city in Surrey and residential to England’s first worldwide airport, the place the wealthy would fly to all corners of the British Empire in glamorous Handley Page HP42 biplanes.
Another main aerodrome lay a approach west within the Middlesex village of Heston (which has since been swallowed by London too; it’s now very close to Heathrow airport), after which Chrysler additionally named a automotive.
Also clearly admired by the American producer had been Richmond, presumably for its great park full of untamed deer; Wimbledon, for Fred Perry and accompanying strawberries and cream; Kingston, the place Anglo-Saxon kings had been topped and close to the place Henry VIII had his Hampton Court Palace; and Kew, however not as you may suspect for the botanical gardens, with their marvellous palm home. Rather, this was the placement of the manufacturing unit the place these Chryslers had been made.
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Well, screwed collectively, not less than. These distinctly English Chryslers had been really amalgamations of Chrysler, DeSoto and Plymouth fashions manufactured in Canada, then shipped to Kew as utterly knocked-down kits. This dodged tariffs, whereas renaming them was seemingly as a result of Brits had been reluctant to purchase American.
Talking of dodges, older readers may keep in mind that from 1949 to 1967, Kew-built Chrysler subsidiary Dodge’s ‘parrot-nose’ 100 vans.
Car making there really dated again to 1923, when American automotive maker Maxwell purchased a surplus plane manufacturing unit that had created Sopwith Salamander attackers and Airco DH4 bombers for the warfare.
Adverts positioned in Autocar attest that enterprise began with aplomb, though one wonders whether or not the ‘unrivalled’ tourer’s value minimize from £330 to £298 after a 12 months actually was because of its ‘enormous popularity’, as a result of by 1925 a debt-ridden Maxwell had folded into the brand new agency created by former General Motors govt Walter Chrysler – whose gross sales elevated sevenfold in simply the 4 years as much as 1928.
Initially the vehicles assembled at Kew had been variations of the first-ever Chrysler automotive, the Six.
The Surrey naming regime started in 1934 with the Airflow – a really revolutionary automotive, as one of many first designed in a wind tunnel (with the assistance of a minimum of Orville Wright) to make it aerodynamically environment friendly.