(2 of 4)
Pontiac $745
De Soto $845
Dodge Victory 6 $845
Oldsmobile $925
Chrysler 65 $1,040
Oakland $1,145
Buick 20 $1,195
Buick 40 $1,325
Buick 50 $1,525
Chrysler 75 $1,535
Dodge Senior 6 $1,575
La Salle $2,420
Chrysler Imperial So $2,875
CHRYSLER GENERAL MOTORS
Cadillac (Fisher) $3,295
Cadillac (Fleetwood) $4,195
Fargo Commercial Cars General Motors Trucks,
Yellow Cabs
Motor Boats
Frigidaires
Delco Lights,
Electric Plants, etc.
There are, however, some major differences between the two units. Direction of General Motors is divided, impersonal; Chrysler Motors, like the Ford company, is united under one chief.* General Motors uses the financial wizards of the Raskob-du Pont type; Chrysler relies chiefly on Walter P. Chrysler. General Motors is close to J. P. Morgan & Co.; Chrysler is the good friend of the Brady family and, more recently, of Dillon, Read & Co. General Motors has issued the huge total of 43,500,000 shares of common stock,† Chrysler only 4,423,484. General Motors sold 1,576,708 cars from January to October; Chrysler's 1928 output was about 500,000, will be 700,000 in 1929. General Motors earned $289,146,201 in the year ending Sept. 30; Chrysler, $25,049,270. General Motors stock rose last year on the New York exchange from 130 to 224; Chrysler from 54¾ to 140½.
Mr. Chrysler does not ignore the lead with which General Motors starts the contest. But he sees no limit to the markets over which the two motor-monsters can struggle. Last September, he visioned a world which is learning the uses of the automobile: "It devolves upon the United States to help to motorize the world. . . . Road building is taking root in Australia, vast Africa, Spain, South America. . . . Every new development, highway, railroad, steamship line, building operation, whether it be a drainage project in old Greece or a new water system in Peru, means an added use of the automobile."
Obliged to prophesy again last week, he announced: "Our automobile industry will achieve another production and sales record. I believe the figure will be approximately 4,750,000 cars by the end of next December.*I believe the U. S. will export, during the year, approximately 1,000,000 automobiles."
Someone, talking about Walter P. Chrysler two years ago, said: "The biggest game stays in the deep forest." The reference was to Mr. Chrysler's relative obscurity from the public eye during the years when he was the greatest doctor of sick automobile companies that the industry had ever known. Sweet are the uses of that sort of obscurity. All his life Chrysler has managed to make himself thoroughly well known in quarters where it would do him the most good.
"Walt" Chrysler was a Kansas boy. Mr.Chrysler Sr. sat at the throttle of a Union Pacific locomotive and made his home at Ellis, Kan., where the railroad had some shops. Young Walt worked as a chore-boy at the grocery store. He hated the little wagon he had to deliver bundles in. When he was 17 he got into the Union Pacific shops as an apprentice, glad of 5¢ per hour pay and a chance to learn something.