The Three Musketeers (Studebaker engineers)
The Three Musketeers is a nickname given to a team of three
History
The nucleus of the engineering team initially formed when
Breer, the oldest of the Musketeers, was born in 1885 as the youngest of nine children; he worked in his father's carriage and blacksmith shop, and built his own steam-powered car in 1901; he would work at Toledo Steam Cars, Spalding, Northern and White, and designed a two-cylinder opposed-cylinder car called the Duro.[2] When Zeder became Chief Engineer of Studebaker's Detroit operations, he asked Breer to join him in 1913.[3][4][5]
Willys-Overland
The three engineers went to work on designing a new car, with a new engine, at Willys' engineering center in Elizabeth.[13] Their assignment was to fix engineering problems on the Willys six-cylinder car then in production, while simultaneously designing a brand-new car from the inside out. The three engineers determined that the existing six-cylinder car was obsolete compared to the ones they had just designed at Studebaker. Their new design, to be released in 1920, was to be called a "Chrysler"; a colossal sign of incandescent lights spelling that name out was erected on top of the Willys plant.[13][14]These plans were halted, however, when funds set aside for the Chrysler Motors Division of the Elizabeth plant were discovered to have been depleted by Willys' Toledo branch. Willys was going bankrupt and heading for receivership. Chrysler himself quit his position at Willys in February 1922, in the turmoil of producing the new
Consulting firm
Zeder, Breer and Skelton were embarrassed, as they had coaxed a complete team of engineers to go to Willys with them from Studebaker. Studebaker, at that time, had a plant in Detroit that was doing financially well. The three men, along with several Willys engineers, set themselves up as a consulting firm in Newark, New Jersey, under the name "Zeder Skelton Breer Engineering Company."[15][16]
Maxwell-Chalmers
The Elizabeth Willys plant and the Chrysler Six prototype were sold to William C. Durant in a bankruptcy sale. The plant then built Durant's low-priced Star automobile. The Chrysler Six prototype would be made larger, becoming the 1923 Flint automobile, built in Flint, Michigan.[17][18][19] The Chrysler Six was said to be the first modern automobile. Automobile historian Mark Howell remarked that this car was second only to Ford's Model T Ford in terms of its impact on the automobile industry.[20] He said this car was the dividing line between the old style car and the modern automobile.[21] Chrysler's first luxury car was priced at an affordable $1,565.[22]
Chrysler negotiated a four-year management contract with
There, in 1924, Chrysler launched his own version of the Chrysler six-cylinder. The Chrysler car was financially successful.[25]
Chrysler
In 1925, the Maxwell car company became the Chrysler Corporation.[25][26] The "lightning flashes" on the Chrysler logo were actually Zs, a tribute to Fred Zeder.[27] This logo was used on the first Chrysler automobile built in 1924 and, off and on, for years thereafter. Zeder designed cars by a process of experimentation, where designs were tested under controlled laboratory conditions before being put into production.[28][29][3]
The three continued to design cars for Chrysler; in 1927, Breer's wind tunnel studies would advance the state of the art in streamlining cars.[30] In 1931, Zeder and Skelton's design of the Floating Power Plymouth (which used advanced rubber engine mounts to reduce vibration) came about in part from Zeder's friendship with Charles and William Mayo (the founders of the Mayo Clinic), with whom he observed numerous surgeries and studied the function of cartilage and connective tissue in the human body.[31]
References
- ^ Yanik 1995, p. 1.
- ^ a b Curcio 2001, p. 272.
- ^ a b Curcio 2001, p. 270.
- ^ a b c d Severson, Aaron (2011). "Changing Winds: The 1934-1937 Chrysler and DeSoto Airflows". Archived from the original on 23 February 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
- ^ a b Zatz, David (1998–2000). "Carl Breer, Executive Engineer". Allpar; allpar.com. Archived from the original on 2 November 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
- ^ Curcio 2001, p. 271–272.
- ^ a b c Wright, Kelsey (1998–2000). "Owen Skelton, Executive Engineer". Allpar; allpar.com. Archived from the original on 31 October 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
- ^ Yanik 1995, p. 31.
- ^ Yanik 1995, pp. 60–69.
- ^ "Carl Breer, one of Chrysler's Three Musketeer". Allpar; allpar.com. 2020. Archived from the original on 26 November 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
- ^ Hyde 2003, p. 17.
- ^ Devon Frances (1967). "Three Musketeers". Ward's Quarterly. 3: 23.
- ^ a b Yanik 1995, pp. 65–70.
- ^ Weiss 2003, pp. 119–124.
- ^ Yanik 1995, p. 70.
- ^ Curcio 2001, pp. 281–282.
- ^ Weiss 2003, p. 122.
- ^ Yanik 1995, pp. 71, 72.
- ^ Kulchycki, T.L. (2000–2007). "The Flint Catalog". Archived from the original on 21 January 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
- ^ Curcio 2001, p. 317.
- ^ The Beginning of it all: The 1924 Chrysler Six
- ^ Curcio 2001, p. 315.
- ^ Yanik 2009, p. 146.
- ^ Yanik 2009, p. 147.
- ^ a b Yanik 2009, pp. 157–158.
- ^ "The 1931 Plymouth PA: Walter Chrysler's Fistful of Aces". 2000–2007. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
- ^ Weiss 2003, pp. 125, 126.
- ^ Wright, Kelsey (2001–2012). "Fred Zeder, Vice President in Charge of Engineering". Allpar; allpar.com. Archived from the original on 2 November 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
- ^ "Chrysler Institute of Engineering". Archived from the original on 2012-11-27. Retrieved 2012-12-17.
- ^ Curcio 2001, p. 541.
- ^ Curcio 2001, p. 476.
Bibliography
- Curcio, Vincent (2001). Chrysler: The Life & Times of a Genius. ISBN 0195147057.
- Hyde, Charles K. (2003). Riding the Roller Coaster. ISBN 9780814330913.
- Weiss, H. Eugene (2003). Chrysler, Ford, Durant: Founding Giants of Automotive Industry (illustrated ed.). McFarland. ISBN 0786416114.
- Yanik, Anthony J. (1995). The Birth of Chrysler Corporation - Its Engineering Legacy. Society of Automotive Engineers. p. 146. ISBN 1560915242.
- Yanik, Anthony J. (2009). Maxwell Motor: the Making of the Chrysler Corporation (illustrated ed.). Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0814334232.