Automotive News [sub] reports that Chrysler has switched the status of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum to non-profit– to keep expenses from impacting the company's bottom line. And that's not all. Chrysler is asking its beleaguered dealers for $5k apiece to fund the museum. To that end, the museum will now be known as the "Walter P. Chrysler Founding Dealers Society" (as opposed to something catchy like The Chrysler Museum). Luckily for ChryCo dealers trying to make their nut on sales of $20k Rams, the program is voluntary. Dealerships who pony-up the five Gs get their name on a donor wall in the museum. With 70 vehicles and six full-time employees, the WPCFDS is hardly a major drain on Chrysler resources. Who knows, maybe this is a test balloon for taking all of Chrysler to 501c3 status, establishing the country's first non-profit (as opposed to profit-free) automaker.
7 Comments on “Chrysler Seeks Non-Profit Status. For its Museum. For Now....”
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I thought Chrysler was a nonprofit museum
Kansastravel.org has a picture of Walter Chrysler’s boyhood home–a two-story house. That picture is also on the web site o the Ellis, Kansas museum that maintains the house. So what connection does that one-story house have to Walter Chrysler? Is it his birthplace in Wamego?
Sherman Lin, I was under that impression as well.
It begs the age old question of Chrysler.
How are they still in business?
Must be the Ram’s strong sales?
(bursting out in laughter)
Sometimes the jokes write themselves, don’t they?
Sadly they do…
So what connection does that one-story house have to Walter Chrysler? Is it his birthplace in Wamego?
Yes, I believe it is. I was there for a Winged Warriors car show in Wemego in 2001. It’s a nice little town.
Anyway, the Walter P. Chrysler Museum is awesome and well worth a visit for any Mopar fans.
They can’t call it the Chrysler Museum because there is already a Chrysler Museum (of art)in Norfolk, Va (endowed by WPC)