The history of Chrysler Corporation is, in many ways, a history of a company floundering from one financial crisis to the next. While that has given shareholders , it has also motivated the Pentastar company to in the United States. From the moment Chrysler unleashed the Firepower hemi V-8 engine on the world for the 1951 model year, they had been . Because the company pioneered the use of lightweight unibody technology, it had the stiffest, lightest bodies in which to put those most powerful engines, and that is the basic muscle-car formula: . When the muscle car era exploded onto the scene, Chrysler unleashed the mighty , the Dodges and Plymouths that . Fabled nameplates like , , and defined the era and rank among the most valuable collector cars ever produced by an American automaker.