“No matter what you have,” Lee Iacocca once said, “it's never enough.”
Business icon Lee Iacocca speaks after he is honored during an awards ceremony in Great Hall at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum on April 13, 2011, in New York.
A powerful speaker with ego to spare, Iacocca became a heroic figure to millions of Americans. He also became a household name by starring in Chrysler’s television commercials, where he pointed a finger at viewers and delivered a sales pitch that entered the lexicon: “If you can find a better car, buy it.”
Fiercely debated across the nation as Iacocca jawboned Congress into backing the company, the corporate bailout and TV ads gave him a visibility that was unprecedented for a businessman in modern times. But he recognized that his dictatorial and often profane style wasn't suited for politics. He publicly discouraged talk of the presidency and later turned down an appointment to the U.S. Senate from his home state of Pennsylvania.
But by the time he retired as chairman of Chrysler on Dec. 31, 1992, he had overseen a second and more fundamental turnaround. He maintained homes on L.A.'s Westside and in Indian Wells, Aspen, Colo., Detroit and the Tuscany region of Italy, where he owned a small estate and winery, Villa Nicola, named after his father.
A brief second marriage to Peggy Johnson ended in divorce. He married Los Angeles restaurateur Darrien Earle in 1991, but that union also ended in divorce. “The Depression turned me into a materialist. I was after the bucks,” he said, a mission he completed grandly. Cheered for taking a $1 salary when Chrysler was in trouble, he was castigated for taking home as much as $20 million a year when the company had recovered.Iacocca also spoke of bigotry aimed at Italian Americans when he was growing up in Allentown.
McNamara later became president of the World Bank. One of McNamara's last acts at Ford was to recommend that Iacocca become, at 36, the youngest vice president in Ford's history. The articles amounted to unpaid commercials for both the car and the man. Iacocca — rhymes with “Try-a-Coke-ah,” Time explained — would later credit the stories with generating sales of an extra 100,000 Mustangs. They also created the impression that the Mustang was virtually a one-man feat and forged the tough Iacocca image. He was, Newsweek gushed, “as direct as the thrust of a piston.”
Henry Ford II, meanwhile, represented a family of the sort that passed for royalty in America. Namesake of the genius who started it all, he never let his executives get close. His name was on the building and his family controlled 40% of the Ford Motor stock. But that is Iacocca's account. Walter Hayes wrote in the 1990 book “Henry” that Iacocca had tried to enlist board members in a coup attempt while Henry was out of the country.
Nor was Ford Motor Co. in very good shape in its all-important U.S. operations — Iacocca's direct responsibility — when he was fired. That became clear when the Iranian revolution in 1979 sent oil prices soaring, and Ford's new-car pipeline was found to be almost empty. By 1981, Ford was in deep financial trouble. The Iacocca and Henry Ford camps still blame each other for that fact.
No bank would lend Chrysler money, and Iacocca — who for years had railed against federal intervention in the auto industry — lobbied Washington in a memorable display of chutzpah and skill. He employed a spellbinding style that he credited, improbably, to a high school Dale Carnegie course.In a warning that was largely borne out, Iacocca told lawmakers that Chrysler was just the leading edge of an economic crisis that would ripple through industrial America.
Within three years, Chrysler was earning record profits. And in a vintage I-told-you-so appearance at the National Press Club in 1983, Iacocca announced he was paying back the guaranteed loans seven years ahead of time. The government collected millions of dollars in fees on the deal. Putting all its stylists, engineers and other key people under one roof at the glitzy technical center, Chrysler turned Detroit's cumbersome car-development process upside down and began bringing autos out ahead of time and under budget.
México Últimas Noticias, México Titulares
Similar News:También puedes leer noticias similares a ésta que hemos recopilado de otras fuentes de noticias.
From the Mustang to the minivan, auto legend Lee Iacocca is dead at 94Iacocca was one of the most powerful — and best known — executives in the automobile industry, rising to become president of Ford Motor before leading a turnaround at Chrysler.
Leer más »
Lee Iacocca dead at 94, father of the Ford Mustang, later rescued ChryslerLee Iacocca, an ambitious immigrant's son and salesman extraordinaire, dominated the automobile industry like nobody since Henry Ford.
Leer más »
Auto industry leader Lee Iacocca, credited with saving Chrysler, has died at age 94Lee Iacocca, who previously served as president of Ford and chairman of Chrysler, died on Tuesday at the age of 94.
Leer más »
Lee Iacocca, legendary Detroit auto executive, dies at 94Former colleagues say ex-Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca has died at age 94 in Bel Air, California.
Leer más »