The Legend of Lee Iacocca

when it comes to legends of the automotive industry it's hard to think of too many men who've been more important to contemporary history than Lee Iacocca Lord only knows what would have happened to the automotive industry if he'd failed to secure a loan for Chrysler as we entered the 1980s and one would think the American muscle car landscape might have been vastly different in the 1960s had he not managed to convince Henry Ford the second to put the Mustang into production this is without even getting into how Iacocca spearheaded the company's acquisition of AMC in 1987 which resulted in the Jeep brand becoming more prominent as the 80s rolled over into the 90s I mean do SUVs gain a foothold without the popularity of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the minivans that preceded it in a way it all comes back to the kei car even more than the Mustang of the Jeep acquisition the kei platform did more for the industry than just about any project Iacocca ever spearheaded because it helped Chrysler get back on its feet as a big three automaker things were really touch-and-go in the early 80s for Chrysler and if they had collapsed the effect would have been catastrophic not only would Chrysler have gone down they'd have been taking countless subsidiary companies down with them which would have done enormous damage to the economy in addition to the insane number of jobs that would have been lost the ripple effect could have led us into another great depression to say nothing of the effect it might have had on car culture it would have been bad times whether you had skin in the automotive game or not now this isn't to say that Lee Iacocca single-handedly saved us from a nation resembling Robocop's Detroit I mean you could probably do this type of cause and effect analysis with just about anything but ultimately the point of all this is to illustrate that Iacocca's contributions are an important facet of automotive history even if you've never made contact with the kei car yourself we are going to go through every single little thing Iacocca did but it should go without saying that he's a guy who did more good than I think he gets credit for these days so sit back and enjoy as I spend the next hour tilling the soil of automotive history this is the legend of Lee Iacocca Lito Anthony Iacocca was born on October 15 1924 in Allentown Pennsylvania his father Nicola emigrated to the United States from Italy near the turn of the century over the decades that followed his arrival in America Nicola met and married Lee's mother worked as a shoe cobbler owned a movie theater and was a restaurateur alongside his brother who'd opened up a hot dog joint in the Lehigh Valley the place was named the Orpheum Weiner house which is a more ominous name but probably less marketable long term either way it was later changed to Yoko's after niccola's brother theodore heard his pennsylvania dutch customers struggle like hell to pronounce his last name but that's not all as nikola Iacocca managed one of the very first car rental agencies in the United States a quaint little place called you drive it the lot was mostly filled with Ford brand vehicles so we developed a respect and understanding of automobiles from his father at an early age in addition to a better understanding of Finance it was Nikola Iacocca who told me to never ever allow yourself to fall into debt with anyone no matter whom you borrow from and no matter how much you borrow you write yourself a note you make a plan and you make sure you pay your debt back it was a matter of principle as much as a matter of credit anyone who knows the story knows how this tidbit comes back around but for now let's just say that Nikola was a savvy businessman and a definite car guy in his own right yet it wasn't Nikola who introduced me to the automotive industry rather it was a family friend by the name of Edward Charles who had just so happened to open up a Ford dealership of his own we could see that the auto business was about far more than engineering that there was nuance to the retail side of things as well it got Lea excited enough to consider a career in the automotive industry but since he was every bit as ambitious as his father Lee set his sights high and vowed that he would one day be the president of the Ford Motor Company everything he would do from that point onward would be towards the goal of earning a job at Ford and working his way up the ladder naturally this sort of thing is easier said than done but even if he fell short of the presidency it was clear that Lee would at least have himself a decent career if he with cars since it was similarly clear that the auto industry would inevitably trend upward as more households became capable of affording cars Li graduated from William Allen high school in 1942 having been rejected for military service during the Second World War due to a medical exemption stemming from his bout with rheumatic fever at age 15 which disqualified him from service altogether but Lee did plenty with his time on the home front earning his bachelor's in industrial engineering from Lehigh University in 1945 winning the Wallace Memorial fellowship to Princeton University and earning his master's in mechanical engineering shortly thereafter during his time in school we attended lectures by Albert Einstein acquired a better understanding of the nuances of automotive engineering and even completed his thesis and graduate project by hand building a hydraulic dynamometer by this point Lee had already secured a promised place in Fords engineering program in Dearborn Michigan but he wouldn't accept the position until he completed graduate school however he failed to get the promise in writing and he nearly missed out on the program all together after the Ford employee who'd offered in the spot was drafted into the military the 50 spots for the training program had already been filled so Leif only employees boss at Ford and explained his issue ultimately the man made the compromise of allowing Lee to be the 51st candidate if he could make it to Dearborn before orientation we made it just under the wire and the rest is history thanks in large part to Lee's unwillingness to just accept a rotten change in Fortune there's an anecdote in Iacocca's autobiography that relates how his father instilled in him the idea that a person must put everything into his work in order to succeed I mean it's not exactly a novel idea to teach this to your kid but in least case it stuck pretty early on in life in one passage we Relays the story of a surly waitress who waited on the family one night they had been going out for a quaint little family dinner when her attitude basically put a damper on their entire night so Nicola called the waitress over at the end of the meal and gave what Lee describes as his father's standard speech I'm going to give you a real tip why are you so unhappy in this job is anyone forced you to be a waitress when you act early you're telling everybody you don't like what you're doing we're out for nice time and you're wrecking it if you really want to be a waitress then you should work at being the best damn waitress in the world otherwise find yourself another line on work it was a speech that Nicola would carry over to his own employees at Yoko's who he'd fire for rudeness if they ever got snippy with a customer now granted today's employment climate is a bit different than it would have been in the 1940s but the lesson still holds on the basis of one simple principle that Iacocca took from all this all the talent in the world doesn't excuse deliberate rudeness and I know what you're thinking what does rudeness have to do with anything how did that help Iacocca in his career at all well as fate would have it we would end up dealing with his fair share of nightmarish employees in the auto industry Henry Ford the second chief among them but he had to be willing to compromise with people even if he disagreed with them he couldn't allow himself to devolve into meanness and cruelty he couldn't allow himself to become surly or pulled petty grudges he'll the one time he snapped and decided to hold a grudge it resulted in a decision that nearly spelled the end for Chrysler but more on that later needless to say we I coca did well to practice what his father preached in fact it's not far off to say that Iacocca wouldn't have accomplished half of what he did without the principles instilled in advise father considering that we actually gave serious thought to quitting the car business all together in the 1950s in order to pursue a career as a restaurateur since he made serious Bank on his first attempt a cheese steak place called the four chefs there's some unnecessary humble bragging in the autobiography here about having virtually invented the concept of a fast-food franchise which I'm not entirely certain I buy but the truth is that before chefs ended up doing really solid business in fact it did so well that Lee ended up having to get rid of it because it moved him up to a higher tax bracket than he could really afford at the time granted there are worse problems a person could have Britt still this was a life to which Lee could have easily returned if he really wanted to leave the auto industry in those first couple years lord knows he probably would have less anxiety as a restaurant owner than he ended up having as an executive in the auto industry but would he have been happy or would he have been plagued with the question of whether he gave up on his true calling ultimately we decided to stick with cars and well the story only gets larger from here i ACOTA toiled in engineering as the forties rolled over into the 50s but it didn't take him long to realize that he would be far more useful at the whole business side of the equation he was transferred to the sales and marketing division working at Ford's district marketing office in Chester Pennsylvania which was part of the Philadelphia district for Ford it wasn't a place where Iacocca was intended to gain any sort of corporate exposure and this somewhat dampened his plans to one day become president of the Ford Motor Company since it's generally hard to get noticed when you're put in a place where you're not expected to make much of an impression at all but I took them aid the most of his situation by taking a page out of his father's playbook instituting an interesting marketing gimmick in the form of the 56 456 campaign basically I told his district was dead last in the nation in sales and he needed a way to move product so he came up with the idea that anyone purchasing a new 1956 Ford would be able to do so for just 20% down and three years of $56 monthly payments Iacocca believed that most Americans would be able to afford this and he also figured they would be enticed by the prospect of owning a brand new car granted this is about five hundred and four dollars a month in today's money so I don't know how affordable this really would be but in 1956 you bet your sweet ass that went over like free beer at a pretzel Expo in just three months Iacocca's office went from last place to first and even earned the praise of Ford division vice president Robert McNamara who would go on to the Ford presidency himself before serving in the Kennedy administration the 56 for 56 campaign became part of Ford's national marketing strategy and it made an overnight sensation earning him a promotion to district manager of Washington DC by 1960 he was head of car marketing all together and yes this is glazing over the decade of toil that Iacocca spent trying to get noticed that Ford as an engineer and later as a marketing whiz but it's really not an exaggeration to say that he had a rocket strapped to his career after the 56 456 idea took off as the plan ended up moving an extra 75 thousand cars over the lifetime of the campaign it was the type of stunt promotion that Lee had learned from his father who would regularly do promotion at his movie theaters such as the ten kids with the dirtiest faces getting free no seriously that was one of the promotions for a Saturday matinee and hey I know I throw some crap on my face of it then I could get into the next fist punch movie for free and yet despite the surprising success of the 56 456 campaign Ford suffered a 27% sales hit due to what experts claimed was McNamara's lack of marketing savvy you see McNamara had this obsession with filling all of Ford's marketing materials with facts highlighting the safety features of their cars on the principle that function and safety are ultimately more appealing to a consumer than form and price point but these were the days when mainstream car culture as we know it would start to take off with the increase in car ownership among Americans came the interesting cars beyond their work a day function cars were becoming a hobby every bit as much as an appliance in short people really didn't care if a car was safe or not they just wanted it to go fast look cool and make their neighbors envious it was a style over substance situation in the u.s. for the most part and sure that kind of thinking resulted in Iacocca giving us disasters like a Ford Pinto a monster of a car that injured Iacocca's image as this infallible automotive mastermind between its safety hazard reputation and a rush job production that smacked of desperation to cut into the smaller Japanese import scene but on the other hand we also got the Mustang out of all this which differ performance cars what Louie Armstrong did for jazz it rounded off the edges and made it safe to be handled by your parents while still retaining enthusiast credibility in short work ayuh toca went from a marketing whiz to one of the top executives at the company particularly once he got the Mustang up and running for that ten years stretched from 1956 to 1966 everything was coming up Iacocca and his star would only rise from there he ascended to the vice presidency of the car and truck group in 1965 and the executive vice presidency of the company in 1967 before finally realizing his dream on December 10 to 1970 when Lee Iacocca became the president of Ford he done it he'd stuck with auto industry and was rewarded for his diligence with a pain-in-the-ass job working alongside one of the most cantankerous men in the history of American automotives yes henry ford ii was pretty much renowned as a notoriously difficult man who was determined to make $5 his way rather than 5-hundred somebody else's most of this comes from Iacocca's autobiography as he attempted to explain why ford ii was such a fearful megalomaniac basically ford ii had been protected for virtually his entire life by his grandfather Henry Ford the first because there was a widespread concern over kidnappings they pretty much feared a second Lindbergh baby situation with Ford the second getting snatched a ransom being demanded and the heir to the Empire getting killed anyway of course what happened to the Lindbergh baby was tragic and unspeakable in its own right so I can't exactly blame Ford for being cautious but by sheltering his grandson as much as he did he conferred upon the boy a certain sense of inflated importance yeah he would be the future heir to the Ford Motor Company but he still had to answer to the common man by appealing to them first and his own self-interest second however henry ford ii would often fail to recognize that his self-interest could be served through serving his constituency it was an ego thing but it was also a problem with learned paranoia I mean for crying out loud the real twist in all this is that Ford ii ended up turning on his grandfather in 1946 out seeing the very man who had paid so much to protect him all those years now branded in fairness to Henry Ford the second the ouster was motivated by Henry Ford's mental deterioration following a series of strokes and it wasn't even led by Henry Ford the second but by his mother who lost her husband Edsel Ford three years earlier to stomach cancer but the fact remains that the overprotectiveness of his upbringing imbued henry ford ii with the paranoia that would come to define his later life for instance ford ii would flip out anytime he saw two of his executives talking demanding to know the nature of their conversation for fear that they were trying to oust him too the funny part in all this is that subsequent rumors in the following decade what alleged that Iacocca was legitimately planning announced henry ford ii at the height of their tensions now I don't know if Iacocca would have succeeded but it would be interesting to think of the changes to the American auto industry had Iacocca never gone to Chrysler either way Ford and Iacocca clash over countless business decisions such as the minimax project which he developed with Ford vice president house Berwick somehow for the second didn't see the minivan as a vehicle that would ever catch on so we essentially put the kibosh on it later when I toca attempted to negotiate with Honda in order to use their motorbike engines in a prototype high fuel efficiency car for the second declared that no car with my name on the hood is going to have a engine inside Ford saw any positive press for Iacocca as an outright threat this is to say nothing of how poorly the two men got on as their personalities were starkly contrasted while he might not have always been a warm-hearted boss Iacocca was at least fair and would listen to employees he also genuinely cared about the well-being of the people in his employ down to the lowest level factory worker but Henry Ford the second was an insular man prone to suspicion and myopic self-interest Ford fired Iacocca on July 13 1978 despite the fact that executives and shareholders didn't really want him to leave what with his successes on the Mustang the Fiesta and the mark 3 sure the Pinto was a bomb in more ways than one but the positives outweighed the negatives in Iacocca's run but for the second didn't really care even though the company posted two billion dollars in revenue for 1978 as Ford would later declare after being asked why fired Iacocca sometimes you don't like someone ultimately with his decision henry ford ii had handed a gift-wrapped package to his competitors namely chrysler you see at the time Iacocca was let go by Ford the Chrysler Corporation was in freefall hemorrhaging money due to the poor decisions they'd made over the years such as refusing to give up on gas guzzlers at a time where two separate Arab oil boycotts have led to skyrocketing gas prices granted this wouldn't have been as disastrous had their cars been selling hell Hummers apparently still sell for some reason but Chrysler just didn't have cars that excited anyone in a general sense priceless vehicles were considered some of the worst on the road at the time from a build quality standpoint as evidenced by the recalls of first run cars like the Plymouth Volare and Dodge Aspen so I took a join Pressler on the premise that he would help restructure the company from the ground up in a way that he hopes it would help turn things around it's not immediately then in the long term because at this point it didn't seem as though Chrysler had much of a long term to look forward to between all the layoffs and factory closings and the aforementioned hemorrhaging money not only would I Akaka bring in some former associates at Ford he would also carry over the minimax project he also sold off Chrysler Europe to Peugeot and diverted funds to further promote the subcompact Dodge Omni and Plymouth horizon which had become surprised successes just prior to Iacocca's hiring a CEO this was good enough to stave off the closing of the company altogether but it wasn't a long-term fix so Iacocca went to the US government for help it wasn't ideal of course but for now it was pretty much the only solution and yet as Lee was about to find out the government really wasn't going to make this easy for him when Iacocca was brought before Congress plead his case he discovered a system that had already made up its mind against meeting him halfway they resented his claims of excessive regulation even though the argument from Iacocca's end was that this entire mess was at least half the government's fault sure Chrysler had any number of errors in judgment like pushing out the Aspen and Villar a before they were ready and mismanaging finances to a catastrophic degree but this didn't mean that the government's excessive regulatory provisions in the 1970s didn't play some part in what happened at least in Iacocca's mind especially given how much those regulations cost over the years in his argument to the government Iacocca would also draw parallels between Chrysler's situation and that have previously bailed out corporations Lockheed Martin and consolidated rail the latter of which had also lost money hand-over-fist due to government regulations in the early 70s on October 18th 1979 Iacocca formally made his case to the House Subcommittee on economic stabilization of the committee on banking finance and urban affairs instead of butting heads over the regulations Iacocca instead appealed to their sense of fiscal responsibility I am sure that you know I do not speak alone here today I speak for the hundreds of thousands of people whose livelihood depends on Chrysler remaining in business it is that simple our 140,000 employees and their dependents are 4700 dealers and a 150,000 employees who sell and service our products are 19,000 suppliers and the 250,000 people on their payrolls and of course the families and dependents of all those constituents of course the bigwigs were confused about just what kind of help ayuk Olga was looking for interpreting his speech as a plea for a handout Iacocca made certain to specify that he wasn't looking for charity he was looking for an opportunity to amend the mistakes that brought Chrysler to this point he also made it clear that every last dollar of the loan would be repaid with interest still the government needed more to go off of specifically just why Chrysler needed to help in the first place and why they deserved it at all for Iacocca it all came down to seven key points for one Chrysler's issues were the result of an unfortunate combination of lousy management a recession that came at pretty much the worst possible time and usual one-two punch of oil and energy crises along with the aforementioned government regulations for Chrysler only the management issues were within their control and the problem had already been rectified for the most part the implication is that with the second chance Chrysler would perform beyond even the most generous expectations secondly Iacocca argued that Chrysler was already in the process of turning things around by reducing fixed costs by over five hundred million dollars per year selling off assets and reducing executive salaries third it was argued that Chrysler's profit margins on subcompact cars weren't enough to keep the company in business alone and they were running out of the necessary money to keep their full line of cars and light trucks in production fourth Chrysler wasn't in a position to survive a bankruptcy not only were American jobs on the line the health of the American economy itself was at stake fifth there were no merge offers on the table from any other automotive manufacturer meaning loan guarantees were pretty much the last resort for the company six Iacocca argued that Chrysler actually had the best average fuel economy of the big three auto makers and that the future of fuel economy was through them and finally Iacocca believed Chrysler's five-year plan was certain to work with the idea of improving market share and returning to profitability before 1985 now naturally Iacocca had an opponent in the form of banking committee chairman William Proxmire who had previously voted to give American Motors a federal tax credit resulting in a twenty two million dollar cash rebate for the company in 1967 in 1974 American Motors would be declared a small business by the federal government which showed further favoritism and in 1977 they'll be granted a two-year waiver on emission standards for nitrogen oxides basically the government was naked in its preferential treatment towards American Motors and Iacocca really wasn't happy about this although he'd been elected to the Senate on a platform condemning reckless government spending procs was one of the key figures in providing aid to American Motors which just so happened to have a major assembly plant in Proxmire's home state of Wisconsin so I took a called him out on it when Proxmire called in a question Iacocca's reasons for asking for a bailout in the first place I remember you were the prime mover for loan guarantees for American motors and they're owned by the French so you were aiding and abetting the French government now in a general sense it's not wise to accuse a guy of treason when he's one of the people deciding on the fate of your company but as I told it would later explain in his autobiography he was fed up with trying to be polite to these people since they apparently had their mind set against him from the get-go so he went for the jugular and Proxmire struck back stating that by getting the government involved in Chrysler's day-to-day operations Iacocca was a hypocrite as well since he was the poster child for anti government interference but I took a steered into the skid and admitted that yeah it did fly in the face of his ideology I have been a free enterprise er all my life I come here with great reluctance I am between a rock and a hard place I cannot save the company without some kind of guarantee from the federal government I am NOT going to preach to you you gentlemen already know this better than I do that we are setting no precedent duhhh already four hundred nine billion dollars of loan guarantees on the books so don't stop now men go to four hundred ten billion dollars for Chrysler because it is the tenth biggest company in the US and there are six hundred thousand jobs involved here Iacocca had argued his case but it seemed evident that he wasn't going to have the votes necessary to secure the loan guarantees so i coca had to rely on his team at Chrysler to mobilize efforts to get the government on their side to this end Chrysler enacted a dealer lobby in Washington complete with printouts delivered to each u.s. representative illustrating the consequences to their district if Chrysler were to do a lot of business out of 535 districts only to lacked any sort of Chrysler dealer or affiliate virtually everyone would have been affected elected officials would have been taking a huge gamble with their positions if they allowed Chrysler to go under in this instance it became as much a matter of remaining reelect Abul as it was a matter of fiscal responsibility oh and I suppose it was also a matter of doing right by the constituency but regardless of the motivation the government was gradually won over by Chrysler's tactics now Iacocca had to put the government's money where his mouth was and start cranking out Chrysler savers the pressure was at an all-time high and I suppose he could insert some sort of platitude about how pressure makes diamonds or how when the going gets tough the tough get fiber and then get going but the long and short of it is that Chrysler was only going to have one shot to get this right luckily Iacocca and his team already had something in mind once laid out I took his proposal asked for 1.5 billion dollars in federally guaranteed loans which would give Itoko roughly two years to get things back on track in return the government wanted a complete 3-year business plan that would explain in excruciating detail just how Iacocca was going to turn the company around particularly they wanted to know what kinds of cost-cutting measures he was going to make and what new products he'd intend on putting into production in addition the government took Chrysler's assets as collateral and ordered the company to produce millions in stock words to the government so they could get rich in the event that Chrysler did be impossible so what big idea did I coca and his team have that would get Chrysler out of the red say hello to the kei car with the Chrysler k platform the idea was to marry a traditional front-wheel drive layout with solid beam rear axles and torque weighted engines it was initially derived from the El platform used for the Dodge Omni and plymouth horizon as part of a plan to take the company away from your standard solid axle rear-wheel drive setup in this instance Chrysler offered a front-wheel drive layout four-cylinder engine a manual transmission that could get from 0 to 60 in 10 seconds a throttle that gave automatic transmissions a little more power than nothing at all and fuel economy that rated at 26 miles per gallon city and 41 miles per gallon highway on a 14 gallon fuel tank which made it the highest mileage six passenger car in America the steering was fairly light with accessible handling for auto enthusiasts and everyday drivers alike the boxier shape of the kei cars also offered an American take on Japanese styling but bigger in accordance with American exceptionalism and all that literary subtext although time was of the essence Iacocca had learned his lesson from the Pinto production rush job which was one of his biggest failures back at Ford in preparing the kei car for release Iacocca made certain he had the right team in place in addition to former Ford VP House Berlocq Iacocca broadened Don de la Rosa to serve as VP of design Dave Platt to act as VP of purchasing dickly Asia to serve as president of creative industries paint Carlini to make arrangements with creative industries on the production of prototype wood EK cars and dick rossi o as executive engineer for body electrical this is in addition to more than 25 other men including future Chrysler vice-chairman gerry greenwald and ex ford colleague Paul Berg Moser who would later become Chrysler President himself it was a pretty arduous process getting the kei car off the ground even with Iacocca's hand-picked team in place in its entirety the project cost roughly 1 billion dollars over a three-year period and for good reason engineers spent more than 320 hours testing the platform in wind tunnels and using the data to implement further weight-reducing measures with the intent on reducing drag and overall wind resistance in an attempt to increase highway mileage metal parts on the interior and exterior were replaced with comparable plastic components and electric fans became standard among other implementations Iacocca also focused on having engineers develop more interchangeable parts among the fleet a plan that would allow healthier profit margins for the kei car the entire thesis of the kei platform was modern engineering made simple the initial kei car lineup featured three model options a two-door sedan a four-door sedan and a station wagon engine options included Crysis 2.2 litre four-cylinder and a two point six liter 4-cylinder for mitsubishi there was a certain elegance to the straightforward nature of the kei platforms design that made it attractive to the average consumer fast forward to 1981 when the first K cars the Plymouth reliant and the Dodge Aries rolled off the line with Chrysler's livelihood at stake the company couldn't afford anything less than an enthusiastic reaction luckily that's more or less what they got Motor Trend magazine named both the Aries and the Reliant Car of the Year and combined sales figures numbered nearly 1 million dollars with 307 thousand four hundred eighteen units sold in 1981 alone if anything the kei car was too popular in its first year as the allure of a midsize sedan starting at the price of under six thousand dollars resulted in demand outstripping supply it took the Newark Detroit and Toluca Mexico plans to get the kei car back on track and keep products rolling off the factory lines at a level commensurate with demand the kei car line was able to sell roughly 280 thousand units a year combined with a 360,000 unit peak over the decade the kei car fleet was in production and just like that a decade that had been shaping up to be a disaster for Chrysler was suddenly on track to becoming one of its most profitable and the kei car was only just getting started the kei car was now a bonafide success and it allowed Chrysler to begin building the momentum necessary to repair their reputation while the Aries in the Reliant were low cost family vehicles that appealed to the middle-class wage earner Iacocca had his sights set on presenting a more refined model that would help lift Chrysler in the public eye to this and we got the Dodge 400 and the Chrysler LeBaron two cars intended to be upscale versions of the kei cars that had debuted the year previous the 400 was available as a two-door coupe four-door sedan and a convertible making this dodges first convertible since the 1971 Dodge Challenger and the first available domestically since Cadillac put the Eldorado out to pasture meanwhile the LeBaron was a resurrected nameplate intended to evoke its 1930s luxury car cachet initially available solely as a coupe or sedan Chrysler eventually added a convertible model to the lineup in addition to the station wagon town and country model the 82 LeBaron was Chrysler's lowest priced upscale model and it was a pretty smart move on the company's part sure they were trying to appeal to a wealthier clientele but it doesn't exactly hurt to make luxury accessible to the common man - considering they'd been Chrysler's bread and butter for the better part of the 20th century I don't think anyone really cared that it was a little more than an upmarket Plymouth it also helped that the LeBaron had significant stylistic differences from the common kei car in order to appeal to those who might not necessarily have felt the aries or the reliant were the most attractive models in the world for instance the LeBaron had more chrome fancier wheel covers quad headlights and a waterfall grille the front was also a bit curvier and less rigid in its lines the fact that the LeBaron was the only cake Harter received the option of a 2.2 turbo engine only added to its rebate bourgeois mystique and from a style standpoint it really can't be overstated how much the convertible option added to the appeal of these cars when American automakers stopped filling that market Americans just turned to European manufacturers to satisfy their needs it was a niche market sure but the market was still there for convertibles so it made sense for Chrysler to reach out to that consumer base by the time the LeBaron convertible hit the market it was every bit as big a hit as Chrysler at home even though the faux wood paneling of the town and country station wagon seemed destined dated within the decade but who cares wood trim just screamed nostalgia at a time where Americans were turning away from an uncertain future by looking to a romanticized past in short 1982 is yet another solid year for Chrysler with the company finally rediscovering what it felt like to turn a profit the overwhelming success of the 1982 models paved the way for the e car which essentially expanded the K platform by offering roomier interiors and hungrier engine options such as the turbocharged 2.2 and a 2.5 that replaced the flawed Mitsubishi 2.6 which had been proven to suffer from oil leaks the Chrysler II class the Dodge 600 and a new yorker were mid-sized cars that drove like full-size sedans and at a competitive price and it all goes back to the versatility of the K platform as Chrysler was able to mold its lineup in accordance with the taste of its consumers the interchangeable nature of the platform's components meant that production and purchasing costs were down across the board yeah the K platform costs a billion dollars to develop but once it was up and running they were operating at a cost of just fifty million dollars to bring the LeBaron and dodge 400 to market that's an insane turnaround ayuk oka also took part in helping to promote the kei car himself appearing on television in commercials where he'd make his famous pitch if you can find a better car buy it all of the marketing and engineering savvy culminated in Chrysler experiencing its biggest breakthrough in the fall of 1983 with the release of the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager two vehicles that would essentially give birth to the minivan craze that would sweep America in the 1980s it all goes back to Iacocca and house firlock's Ford minimax plans that henry ford ii had passed on with his team in place at chrysler Iacocca was finally able to enact his plan to build a minivan off of the K platform delivering a roomy boxy vehicle with seven passenger seating and engine options that included the standard 2.2 litre straight four and a two point six liter Mitsubishi Astron engine which made 104 horsepower and 140 to town feet of torque well not exactly sexy vehicles they appeal to the same segment of consumers that made a station wagon popular offering Americans a more comfortable way to transfer their family from point A to be it's kind of strange if you think about it because this was before the minivan came to represent what the New York Times would go on to call a symbol of the soul-crushing conformity that was the price paid for suburban comfort with these minivans you had cars that were essentially marketed on their lack of cosmetic opulence it was the ultimate substance over style argument since no one really cared what these minivans look like in their first model year the Kei platform minivan sold over 200,000 units with the strength of the kei car sales coupled with the explosion in popularity for the minivan Chrysler was able to repay the government back loans seven years early paying off the loan in the fall of 1983 this had the net result of earning the US government a 350 million dollar profit in keeping true to his father's teachings Iacocca would pay back every red cent the government loaned him with interest the kei car was firmly entrenched in the American zeitgeist it would remain in that position until the kei car was quietly phased out in the mid 90s with the rise of the SUV but regardless history would remember that on the back of the K platform Chrysler had been saved well for a time at least but the cake are doing the lion's share of pulling Chrysler's back in the profitability Iacocca began to wind down his career in the auto industry but not before making some big moves for one he was key to Chrysler's acquisition of American Motors in 1987 which was part of a play to bring the Jeep brand into the chrysler fold it was a smart move considering this was around the time jeep was preparing to debut the grand cherokee which would go on to become one of the most significant automotive successes of the 1990s of course it's unlikely that Iacocca could predict just how necessary the jeep acquisition would end up being since he had no way of knowing just what kind of hell Chrysler would be in for in the decade to come granted you can make the argument that he probably should have you see early into the 90s Iacocca made what was perhaps his biggest mistake basically it was a single decision that would set Chrysler on a course that would put them right back in the hole they worked so hard to dig themselves out of that decision of course was Iacocca's choice as his successor and it was a mistake because it was a choice made on emotion rather than logic let me explain pretty much when a company is as successful as Chrysler was in the 1980s the people responsible tend to get poached by other companies in the hopes that these executives will be able to duplicate the success for their company in 1990 Chrysler treasurer Frederick W Zuckerman announced he would depart from the company several weeks later international operations head Michael and hums resigned to become president of Black and Decker and k-car point man Jerry Greenwald left Chrysler to become chief executive and owner of United Airlines there was a lot of corporate uncertainty at the top levels and this was exacerbated somewhat by Iacocca's retirement in 1992 and the subsequent announcement of his replacement I get into it a bit more in the RCR stories episode centering on the Daimler Chrysler merger but basically the gist is this Iacocca had two choices as to who would get the nod as the next chairman of Chrysler Robert Lutz seemed like the de-facto pick since he was already head of global product development at Chrysler and had a reputation that preceded him as executive vice president of Ford but there was just one problem ayuh coca and Lutz absolutely hated one another perhaps it was a case of two automotive intellects butting heads or maybe it was simply two egos refusing the budge in the words of Lutz himself Iacocca saw him as far too ambitious volatile unpredictable undiplomatic and emotional whereas Lutz viewed Iacocca as mercurial inconsistent controversial a little insecure and given to posturing and bluster although Iacocca did consider Lutz for the position owing to the respect he had for him as a businessman he just couldn't get over the grudge so he went with Bobby the man who headed up General Motors European division well it would have made far more sense to promote from within Iacocca felt his choice from sound at the time since Eaton seemed like a guy who knew what he was doing but it wasn't that simple basically Eaton didn't believe that Chrysler was a company that could survive on its own in his view they were simply too small how he came to this decision when Chrysler's sales were reaching into the billions in the 90s is anyone's guess but it wouldn't be long before Chrysler would partner with daimler-benz AG and again to keep this video from lasting for the rest of the year just check out the RCR stories on the Daimler Chrysler merger to see just how badly that would go for Chrysler needless to say Eaton made the wrong move and more tellingly he made a move that Lutz likely wouldn't have made himself had he been named Iacocca successor let's believe Chrysler needed to remain an independent company and it's hard to imagine this wouldn't have worked out better for them in the long run since the Daimler Chrysler merger was a situation where Chrysler appeared to be assuming all the risk without any real tangible benefit but Iacocca allowed emotions to get the better of him years later he would openly declare that choosing Eaton / Lutz would be his biggest mistake and you know maybe he should have chosen Lutz but at the end of the day it's up to the people who take over to fully realize their vision for the company maybe Eaton didn't take Chrysler in the direction I like oka would have taken it but there's only so much that any one man could do on the subject of the Daimler Chrysler merger I talk about later clarify one of the more interesting legends about the pre-merger plot to rest the company away from Eaton essentially when shareholder Kirk Kerkorian came to Iacocca in 1995 with the idea of a buyout Iacocca said he would support him but it was contingent upon Kerkorian both raising the necessary funds for the buyout and also agreeing to give 5% of the company to management and to percent to the workers this would give the workers a vested interest in the future of the company and it would also protect them in a manner of speaking since a market cap of twenty four billion dollars meant their stake would eventually grow to be worth six billion dollars in total but because everything was handled by tracing de Klerk or Ian's private investment firm no one appeared to have any idea just how to handle the business end of things for a car company since these really weren't car people so the plan fell through and I toca essentially faded into that good night of course there's an old myth that Iacocca was thrown out of Chrysler kicking and screaming and that he tried to return in 1995 well you could argue that the return in 1995 had some merit to it considering the attempted kerkorian buyout that year there isn't really any veracity to the notion that he was thrown out of Chrysler in 1992 as Iacocca but later say in a 1996 interview for Fortune magazine he told the board that he would stay with the company until he was 68 then remain on board as chairman until he turned 70 when I'm chairman you give me half the pay under my contract I'll be an active working chairman but I don't want to be CEO it was less about being sick of the automotive industry and more about simply wanting to enjoy his autumn years as he would stayed in the interview he had all sorts of employment offers during the tail end of his time at Chrysler from an offer to be president of Harvard to an offer from Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey to fill the vacant senatorial seat left after the tragic death of Senator John Hines in a 1991 plane crash and hey he even briefly considered taking meetings for the position of Commissioner of baseball but he passed on all of that for Chrysler in the face of an increasingly difficult working environment because the automotive industry was the choice he'd made it was the choice he'd always made whether faced with the prospect of a presidential run for being over control of any number of companies for better or worse I coca had held fast to his father's teachings and saw things through and yet even when you finish what you start it doesn't necessarily mean that it ends with you eventually Iacocca got to a point where he simply wanted to leave and spend the rest of his days in the California Sun with his family so that's what he did and for the most part people didn't really see or hear much for Maya Cogan until the mid-2000s when he came back to Chrysler in 2005 just ten years after the attempted hostile takeover with her Corian this was in order to help pitch the ad campaign for Chrysler's employee pricing plus program he would also write a successful book in 2007 titled where have all the leaders gone which detailed his brief flirtation with a political career and his theories on leadership he would even offer his views on the current state of the auto industry over the years in a 2009 Newsweek interview he reflected on the bankruptcy Chrysler faced upon exiting the diamond Chrysler merger stating it pains me to see my old company which has meant so much to America on the ropes but Chrysler has been in trouble before and we got through it and I believe they can do it again if they're smart don't bring together a consortium of workers plant managers and dealers to come up with real solutions these are the folks on the front lines and they're the key to survival let's face it if your car breaks down you're not going to take it to the White House to get fixed but if your company breaks down you've got to go to the experts on the ground not the bureaucrats every day I talk to dealers and managers who are passionate and full of ideas no one wants Chrysler to survive more than they do so I'd say to the Obama administration don't leave them out put their passion and ideas to work that same year Iacocca would be named 18th greatest CEO in American history by CNBC's portfolio this was a pretty crazy year already anyway since Chrysler had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection however in an unfortunate twist because of the bankruptcy Iacocca risked losing part of his pension along with his executive retirement package and his guaranteed lifetime company car but it's hard to imagine this would have fazed Iacocca who has enjoyed a well-earned retirement in Bellaire having accomplished perhaps more than even his boyhood ambitions could have foreseen all in all Iacocca hasn't exactly had a bad run I mean he worked his way from engineering to sales all the way to the presidency of a company he loved and admired since boyhood and that would be enough for any one man to accomplish but the notion that he then went on to become CEO of a rival company and helped mobilize the forces that would save one of the Big Three automakers in the early 1980s is something else entirely I know this entire bit probably borders on deification but I really do believe that Lee Iacocca is one of the most important figures in automotive history I'm not doing this to suck kneecaps his legacy really is its own mountain and many men have tried to scale that summit only to find that living up to the legend is just all a task is jumping over the ocean or some other simile or metaphor whatever I mean I've read enough of the man's story to begin questioning my own accomplishments or lack thereof it's a weird sort of existential crisis that hits you when you realize the insane capacity for an individual in previous generations to shape his world and yet that belies the fact that we each have that same capacity if you want to achieve an ideal no matter how lofty the aspirations to which you're aspiring there's no reason in the world not to try at worse you'll fail and choose a different path at peace and knowing that you at least gave it a shot and that best you could do what Iacocca did climbing your way up the ladder and unhooking that Money in the Bank briefcase at the apex of your ambitions that's how I feel when I read about Lee Iacocca it makes me feel like I can do more Bmore it's not just about aspiration it's about actualization and other corny motivational lines you'd probably see on a poster with a cat hanging off a branch there may be others who affect the auto industry in such an indelible way that their action split time into before and after categories and Lord knows there are already countless people who can inspire enrich and embolden but there will only ever be one Lee Iacocca and while some may view that as a bad thing I think it's pretty great leave and got the one congratulations to everyone who made it to the end with me uh this is law obviously the longest RC our stories yet and it's because usually when I talk about Chrysler like I did with the merger the story kind of gets away from me so I spent the better part of a month writing this but it's also because I have a great amount of respect for Lee Iacocca and his story and I wanted to do some measure of justice to it but uh anyway I really do hope you guys enjoyed this and I'm getting to work on my next one of these and it's going to be about a pretty popular British institution and it's probably not the one that you're expecting but that's all I'll say about it for now but needless to say this was a lot of work but I'm hoping that it pays off in just people enjoying it and I know these little things at the end kind of get a bit repetitive in that I'm just hoping that people enjoy these things but it really is you know yes I'm doing it for work but it's also something that I want people to get something out of whether it's you know knowledge and or enjoyment do anything you know because I love doing this and I love having this as my job and you know I love reading comments and I love sort of having this platform to dig into automotive stories that I really do love and that I love researching and I love writing about and I love talking about so anyway I'll catch you on the next RCR stories and on the next weekly review and anything else that we put out thank you so much for listening and have a great week

Channel: Regular Car Reviews

Views: 541,153

Keywords: Regular, Car, Reviews, Lee Iacocca, lee iacocca documentary, Ford Whiz Kids, Iacocca documentary, Lee Iacocca story, Ford Mustang, K Car, Chrylsler K Car, Chrysler Bailout, Regular Car Reviews, The Roman

Id: WXw5BMP8z0E

Length: 50min 0sec (3000 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/FyllingenOy]

I'm loving these. Roman needs to stop worrying about them being too long.

[u/jb7150]

Suggestion: Bob Lutz

Very influential guy in the car world. AMC -> Chrysler -> GM

He is responsible for why modern car design work starts when the previous generation is released. AMC did it out of necessity and the other companies learned they could do it too. He also was directly responsible for several of the "throwback" style cars (PT cruiser, chevy HHR, etc).

[u/Still-a-VWfan]

Love these. Keep em coming.

[u/genuinely_gud_advice]

Been watching RCR for a while now. I have to admit, I never really liked it when Roman did car reviews but I love these kinds of long length history videos. After watching this video, it finally occurred to me why. Mr Regular gives a lot of energy into his reviews, with lots of different voices and emotional emphasis. It's exactly the way someone would read a short story to a kid before bedtime. It's great in small bursts. Quick, short, energetic, and to the point, perfect for a 10 minute car review video.

Roman is more like a college professor, the kind that loves the topic he teaches and cherished the opportunity to share it with others. He's got a more calm demeanor but still you can tell there is a genuine enthusiasm for what he talking about, which is why it works so well in these longer length videos. There's enough energy that you stay engaged but it's not draining, just like a good college lecture. I have to say I probably would not enjoy these long length videos as much if Mr Regular was doing them.

Keep up the good work, both of you. You seem to have really found your grooves now and it's really working. And don't be afraid to include a little weirdness now and then.

[u/dontbothermeimatwork]

I love the car history episodes. Dont stop!

[u/Starving_Kids]

I know everyone is saying this, but keep making them long! This is probably my favorite RCR History you've made. Great stuff, I made a note to pick up Iacocca's autobiography and at least give it a shot.

[u/Alfa-Dog]

These are so fantastically informative. I think that the fear of them being too long comes from what "everyone else" is trying to do, but to me this reminds me of old school discovery channel. And i mean that in the best way possible. Some stories are done a dis service by being condensed. Take Dan Carlan's Hardcore History. Fleshing out back stories and personalities takes time, but thats what makes history compelling. I absolutely love RCR stories and look forward to them more than regular RCR reviews.

[u/latindoggy]

Hey imma play this while driving please don't worry about these being too long

[u/DrBiochemistry]

Can we like, give you money for these? Perfect setup for patreon. I'd pay a couple of bucks a month for the privilege of getting it earlier (say a week). Big Clive seems to have success with that model.

Also, don't sorry about length (or girth). Just make it as long as it needs to be. When you're done, stop.