Lee Iacocca
Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca was an American author, engineer, and an executive who developed the Ford Mustang, Continental Mark III, and Ford Pinto cars while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and then revived the Chrysler Corporation as its CEO during the 1980s. He was president of Chrysler from 1978 to 1991 and chairman and CEO from 1979 until his retirement at the end of 1992. He was one of the few executives to preside over the operations of two of the United States' Big Three automakers.
Iacocca authored or co-authored several books, including Iacocca: An Autobiography, and ''Where Have All the Leaders Gone?.''
Early life and education
Iacocca was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 15, 1924, to Nicola Iacocca and Antonietta Perrotta, Italian Americans from San Marco dei Cavoti, who settled in the steel producing region of the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania. Members of his family opened a restaurant, Yocco's Hot Dogs, which has since grown to five locations in Allentown and its suburbs. Iacocca was reportedly christened with the unusual name "Lido" because he was conceived during his parents' honeymoon in the Lido district in Venice. However, he denied the basis for his christened name in his autobiography, calling it romantic but untrue; his father, Iacocca wrote, travelled to Lido with the brother of his future wife, long before the marriage.Iacocca attended Allentown High School in Allentown, where he graduated with honors in 1942. He then attended Lehigh University in neighboring Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a degree in industrial engineering. At Lehigh University, he was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, and Theta Chi fraternity.
After graduating from Lehigh, he won the Wallace Memorial Fellowship and attended Princeton University, where he earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering in 1946.
Career
Ford Motor Company (1946 to 1978)
Iacocca joined Ford Motor Company in August 1946 as an engineer. After this brief stint in engineering, he asked to be moved to sales and marketing, where his career flourished. While working in the Philadelphia district as assistant sales manager, Iacocca gained national recognition with his "56 for '56" campaign, offering loans on 1956 model year cars with a 20% down payment and $56 in monthly payments for three years. His campaign went national, and Iacocca was called to the Dearborn headquarters, where he quickly moved up through the ranks. On November 10, 1960, Iacocca was named vice-president and general manager of the Ford Division; in January 1965 Ford's vice-president, car and truck group; in 1967, executive vice-president; and president on December 10, 1970.Iacocca participated in the design of several successful Ford automobiles, most notably the Ford Mustang, the Continental Mark III, the Ford Escort and the revival of the Mercury brand in the late 1960s, including the introduction of the Mercury Cougar and Mercury Marquis. He promoted other ideas that did not reach the marketplace as Ford products, including cars ultimately introduced by Chrysler: the K car and the minivan. Iacocca also convinced company boss Henry Ford II to return to racing, claiming several wins at the Indianapolis 500, NASCAR, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Eventually, he became the president of the Ford Motor Company, but he clashed with Henry Ford II. On July 13, 1978, Iacocca was fired from Ford, even though the company posted a $2 billion profit for the year.
Ford Pinto
In 1968, Iacocca foresaw the need for domestically produced, small, fuel-efficient vehicles, and proposed a vehicle that weighed less than 2,000 pounds and would be priced at less than $2,000. Although Ford's European subsidiary was already selling such a model, the Ford Escort, a team of Ford designers was assigned to create the exterior and interior of an entirely new car, which would be named Pinto. The Pinto entered production beginning with the 1971 model year. Iacocca was described as the "moving force" behind the Ford Pinto.In 1977, there were allegations that the Pinto's structural design allowed its fuel-tank filler neck to break off and the fuel tank to be punctured in a rear-end collision, resulting in deadly fires. In 1978, all 1971–76 Pintos were recalled and had safety shielding and reinforcements installed to protect the fuel tank.
Chrysler (1978 to 1992)
Iacocca was strongly courted by Chrysler at a time when the company appeared to be on the verge of going out of business and had just sold its loss-making Chrysler Europe division to Peugeot in an effort to generate cash because the company was losing millions already in North America. This was partially due to recalls of its Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare, both of which, Iacocca later said, were among the causes for Chrysler's woes and customer dissatisfaction. Iacocca joined Chrysler and began rebuilding the entire company from the ground up and bringing in many former associates from Ford.Also from Ford, Iacocca brought to Chrysler the "Mini-Max" project, which, in 1983, bore fruit in the highly successful Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager. Henry Ford II had wanted nothing to do with the Mini-Max, a restyled version of the minivan, which Toyota was selling in huge numbers in Asia and Latin America, and his opinion doomed the project at Ford. Hal Sperlich, the driving force behind the Mini-Max at Ford, had been fired a few months before Iacocca. He had been hired by Chrysler, where the two would make automotive history together.
Iacocca arrived shortly after Chrysler's introduction of the subcompact Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon. Bearing a strong resemblance to the Volkswagen Rabbit, the front-wheel-drive Omni and Horizon became instant hits, selling over 300,000 units each in their debut year, showing what was to come for Chrysler. The Omni was a derivative of Chrysler Europe's Chrysler Horizon, one of the first deliberately designed "World Cars", which resulted in the American and European cars looking nearly identical externally. However, underneath remarkably similar-looking sheetmetal, engines, transmissions, suspensions, bumpers, and interior design were quite different. Initially the U.S. cars even used VW-based engines, as American Chrysler did not have an engine of an appropriate size for the Omni until the 2.2L engine from the Chrysler K-Car became available. Ironically, some later year base model U.S. Omnis used a French Peugeot-based 1.6L engine.
1979 Chrysler bailout
Realizing that the company would go out of business if it did not receive a large infusion of cash, Chrysler approached the United States Congress in 1979 and requested a loan guarantee. Chairman and CEO John J. Riccardo resigned on September 17, 1979, because he believed that the company would be more likely to receive government aid under new management. His retirement took effect three days later and he was succeeded by Iacocca. Iacocca was able to obtain the guarantee, but Chrysler was required to reduce costs and abandon some longstanding projects, such as the turbine engine, which had been ready for consumer production in 1979 after nearly 20 years of development.Chrysler released the first of the K-Car line, the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant, in 1981. Similar to the later minivan, these compact automobiles were based on design proposals that Ford had rejected during Iacocca's tenure. Released in the middle of the major 1980–1982 recession, the small, efficient, and inexpensive front-wheel drive cars sold rapidly. In addition, Iacocca re-introduced the big Imperial as the company's flagship. The new model had all of the newest technologies of the time, including fully electronic fuel injection and all-digital dashboard.
Chrysler introduced the minivan, considered Sperlich's "baby", in late 1983. It led the automobile industry in sales for 25 years. Because of the K-cars and minivans, along with the reforms Iacocca implemented, the company turned around quickly and was able to repay the government-backed loans seven years earlier than expected.
Iacocca led Chrysler's acquisition of AMC in 1987, which brought the profitable Jeep division under the corporate umbrella. It created the short-lived Eagle division. By this time, AMC had already finished most of the work on the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which Iacocca wanted. The Grand Cherokee would not be released until 1992 for the 1993 model year, the same year that Iacocca retired.
Throughout the 1980s, Iacocca, with the help of his longtime friend and advertisement executive, Leo-Arthur Kelmenson, appeared in a series of commercials developed by Kenyon & Eckhardt for the company's vehicles, employing the ad campaign, "The pride is back," to denote the turnaround of the corporation. He also voiced what was to become his trademark phrase: "If you can find a better car, buy it."
Iacocca retired as president, CEO, and chairman of Chrysler at the end of 1992.
1995 return to Chrysler
In 1995, Iacocca helped billionaire Kirk Kerkorian attempt a hostile takeover of Chrysler, which was ultimately unsuccessful. The next year, Kerkorian and Chrysler made a five-year agreement which included a gag order preventing Iacocca from speaking publicly about Chrysler.In July 2005, Iacocca returned to the airwaves as Chrysler's pitchman, along with celebrities such as Jason Alexander and Snoop Dogg, to promote Chrysler's "Employee Pricing Plus" program; the ads reprise the "If you can find a better car, buy it" line, Iacocca's trademark of the 1980s. In return for his services, Iacocca and DaimlerChrysler agreed that his fees, plus a $1 donation per vehicle sold from July 1 through December 31, 2005, would be given to the Iacocca Foundation for type 1 diabetes research.
Chrysler bankruptcy
In an April 2009 Newsweek interview, Iacocca reflected on his time spent at Chrysler and the company's current situation. He said:Because of the Chrysler bankruptcy, Iacocca lost part of his pension from a supplemental executive retirement plan, and a guaranteed company car during his lifetime. The losses occurred after the bankruptcy court approved the sale of Chrysler to Chrysler Group LLC, with ownership of the new company by the United Auto Workers, the Italian carmaker Fiat and the governments of the United States and Canada.