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The history of Chrysler auto in Evansville.


Fernando Mendes

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That was interesting. Thanks for sharing. It is amazing to hear what a huge impact Mopar autos had on these towns. The number of employees and the sizes of the factories is staggering.

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I enjoyed that video about Evansville.   My father worked at Republic Aviation Co. there during the war building the P47 Thunderbolt fighter  planes.  He was a slender fellow, so they had him slide into the fuselage toward the rear of a plane to attach certain

parts in a small area.

I was born in Evansville in July of 1943.  Republic was later purchased by Fairchild Aviation, who ultimately destroyed all records 

of Republic.  My sister says she recently found our Dad's parking pass at Republic.....and guess what......he was driving a 

Plymouth (I think it was maybe a 1938 model).   In 1946 Dad's name was on a waiting list to purchase a new P15 from the

Aurora, MO Dodge/Plymouth dealer......and he got a nice light grey four door.  I always thought it was a neat car, and

especially liked the dash.   Guess that's why I still like the old Plyms.   

 

Dad got to present a picture  of the P47 to President Franklin Roosevelt during his visit to the plant.  The visit is noted

on the base of a model plane.....made of solid metal.  Several were given out to commemorate the event.  Here are a couple pics of those things.

 

DSC02192.jpgDSC02188.jpgDSC02191.jpgDSC02193.jpg     

Edited by BobT-47P15
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My '49 P18 was built in Evansville. It spent time in North Carolina, Missouri, and Nebraska, before I brought it to Ohio. Thanks

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My sister found another video about Evansville, and one picture in it is our father, Jim Toft, handing President Roosevelt

a picture of the P47 plane.  He is wearing a white shirt.....standing on the far side of the car.....this was in April of 1943.

 

DSC00024.jpg.

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Great video, but it is a little off on two points -

 

1) Briggs Body - The body plant on Columbia Avenue (most of it still stands) was built the by the Graham brothers in 1928.  In 1925 they had sold Graham Brothers Trucks (along with the Evansville plant at Stringtown Road and Maxwell) to Dodge Brothers.   The brothers left Dodge Brothers in 1926.  In 1927 they acquired control of Paige Motor Co and renamed it Graham-Paige Motors Corp.  Their main assembly plant was at 8505 West Warren Avenue in Dearborn.  The Evansville body plant shipped bodies to the West Warren plant.  G-P also had a larger body plant up in Wayne, Michigan. acquired from American Body and Trimming in 1927. 

 

In 1937, trying to raise money for the new redesigned 1938 Graham, the brothers decided to sell the tooling for the Graham Crusader (bodies made in Evansville) along with the tooling for their 224-cid flathead six engine to Nissan in Japan.  Nissan built the Nissan 70 as well as Nissan trucks based on the G-P cars and engines,.  With the Evansville plant no longer needed, they sold it to Briggs Body in 1937. 

 

When Plymouth started assembling cars at Evansville for the 1936 model year, Briggs shipped bodies from their plant on Mack Avenue in Detroit, the same plant that supplied bodies to the main Plymouth plant on Lynch Road.  The Evansville plant was not big enough to supply all bodies for the assembly plant, so Briggs continued to ship bodies from Detroit.  I suspect the slow down at the Evansville plant was not due to customer orders (all assembly plants had to deal with that) but interruptions in deliveries from Briggs.  Bodies were shipped from Detroit by truck.  Briggs shipped completed bodies - painted and trimmed with all body options installed.  By the way, the road from the body plant to the assembly plant is still there.

 

1937 was a great year for Plymouth and Chrysler - the first year Chrysler Corp built over one million cars.  For Plymouth (P-3, P-4) they built 367,044 cars at Detroit, 47,138 cars at Los Angeles, and 69,997 cars at Evansville, as well as 30,860 Dodge D-5 models at Evansville.   Total Evansville production was 100,857 cars and 2,488 Plymouth Trucks.

 

Labour problems hit all American and Canadian plants during the 1930's and into the 1950's.  All manufacturers went through problems with the unions, although Studebaker and Kaiser-Frazer generally agreed to union demands quickly.   Which is why their labour costs were higher than the industry average.

 

2) Plant Closing - Unibody was the reason Chrysler moved to St.Louis.  Chrysler purchased the body division of Briggs in late 1953.  With that Chrysler progressed with changing over to unibody construction.  They wanted all assembly plants to build bodies in their plants with no shipments by truck or rail.  Only stampings and other parts needed.  The Evansville body plant was too small, and it was not possible to physically connect the body plant with the assembly plant.  Nor could either plant be expanded - no room to grow.  St.Louis also had rail connections to all parts of central and western U.S. as well as being on the Mississippi for shipping by boat.  Rail was needed where shipping by water was impossible - such as west of the Mississippi.

 

Dodge (Hamtramck), Newark and Los Angeles all built bodies, so they were fine.  For Chrysler, they had to build a covered conveyor from the Kercheval body plant across East Jefferson to the assembly plant.   Plymouth's Lynch Road plant had three separate assembly lines, so Chrysler was able to rearrange the plant to build bodies with one less line.  DeSoto built bodies and V8 engines at the former Graham plant on West Warren but assembled cars at a plant on Wyoming Avenue six block away.   Too far to connect, and no land available for expansion.  Thus DeSoto production shifted to East Jefferson and Imperial production moved to West Warren for 1959 to 1961.  The Wyoming Avenue plant was used for export CKD units from 1960 to 1980.

 

Chrysler acquired a large plot of land at St.Louis and was able to build two plants - one for cars and one for trucks (A100 then B series vans and wagons starting in 1964).   Thus Chrysler closed the Evansville plant in the summer of 1959 and sold the plants.   It was hard on Evansville.  Thousands of people relied on Chrysler. 

 

Chrysler actually had a third plant in Evansville - or more correctly, its first plant in Evansville.  An Evansville plant appears on Chrysler Corporation plant records in 1925.  And was closed in the early 1930's.  No idea where in Evansville the plant was located or what the plant produced. 

 

 

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