Plymouth


Plymouth was founded in the last days of the roaring twenties, in nineteen twenty eight to be specific for you. It was first introduced by Chrysler as their low cost vehicle brand, as until that time they had mostly focused on higher end and more expensive vehicles. What was soon to be had was a car brand that last until just six years ago. Plymouth arose from the old Maxwell Auto Company – after it had itself had a merger and become the Maxwell-Chambers Car co. – after having fiscal difficulties and all kinds of troubles. They were willing to sell and thus they were bought by Chrysler, rebranded as Plymouth, and sold low cost “economy” cars.

Plymouth logo

This proved to be an excellent investment for Chrysler, as just a year later in 1929 the economy tanked, and thus began the great depression with a market crash that lasted for years. Because they had a low cost low end car Chrysler was able to survive the Great Depression, and it is likely they would have not done so otherwise.

Being a well made vehicle and a somewhat reputable car by the early 30s Plymouth branded cars were selling faster than most and they became the third most popular car to be sold – because of this they were sold at Dodge dealerships along with many others owned by Chrysler. During the war Plymouth sales beat Ford for a few times, and later on after the war during the economic boom times of the fifties they went on to sell over 720,000 in 1957 – which was 200k more than the previous year. These good times would soon end in the 60s when market share plummeted. With a design change that departed from what was normal, starting in 1959, people bought less, and sales dropped significantly. Five years later they brought in new designs that helped regain some of the market share they lost, and with their new lines in the 70s they once again reclaimed the number three spot. However because of Chrysler’s own problems the Plymouth car lines were thinned, import rebadged vehicles were used, and the final days saw cars that were identical to Dodge branded cars.

Plymouth

The final gasp came in 1998, when Eagle was canned and the corporation decided to give Plymouth new lines and unique models of cars – however the Daimler Chrysler merger put an end to that. The final Plymouth car was the 2001 Neon.

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