Maxwell Model 25 History

Launched in the summer of 1913 as a 1914 model, the Model 25 was Maxwell's affordable four-cylinder car — early versions sold for around $695 with high-tension magneto ignition, an electric horn, and optional electric starting and lighting. It became the company's volume product and ran, in evolving form, right through to the end of the marque in 1925.

After Walter P. Chrysler took control of the struggling Maxwell organization in 1921, he had the car's quality problems sorted out (notably a tendency for rear axles to fail) and marketed the improved version as the 'Good Maxwell.' By 1923 the Model 25 was selling well over 50,000 units a year, with a roughly 30-horsepower four-cylinder engine on a 109-inch wheelbase and a range of body styles.

The Model 25's design outlived its own brand. When Maxwell was folded into the new Chrysler Corporation in 1925, the four-cylinder car was reworked into the first low-priced Chrysler four, and that lineage evolved again into the first Plymouth in 1928 — making the humble Maxwell 25 a direct ancestor of two enduring American nameplates.