Quote:
Originally posted by Bill Murray
Chrysler:
I have no solid information that Chrysler had any manufacturing or assembly operations of any consequence outside of the US prior to 1939.
They certainly did do a lot of export activities and were present to one degree or another in pretty much every country in the world.
I can only assume that they sent out the same variety of CBU, chassis and kit variety of vehicles as GM and Ford did.
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Most of the RHD Chrysler varieties that reached New Zealand originated from Canada, thus giving me the impression that like Ford & GM they had manufacturing facilities there (in Canada).
New Zealand in 1938/39 recieved a lot of the smaller bodied Plymouths badged as Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, Plymouth and Fargo (trucks) from Canada along with a sprinkling of the bigger US bodied sedans in RHD. Most sedans were also availiable in 'boot models' (had a bump then a flat boot lid) or the sloped back (roof sloped straight down to the bumper). All the rebadged ones also had minor interior styling differences as well. The same applied to the 1938 models although I am not sure of the pre 1938 vehicles.
Trucks were mainly either flat cowl with locally made timber framed bodies or cowl/windscreen models with local made timber framed bodies. This type of body style was present up to the early 50's as well before all steel cabs became availiable. A lot of the smaller 1/2 ton models also had the running boards and rear mudguards fitted and flat tray, locally built bodies fitted over the top of the mudguards.
I owed a large variety of 1939 to 1945 Chrysler products in my youth so I had a lot of first hand experience with them. Alas no camera in those days so photos are few and far between.
Cheers
Cliff
