OT: Auto Icon Lee Iacocca has died
He helped create the Ford Mustang and was President of Ford from 1970 until he was fired in 1978. Later he would help Chrysler navigate two recessions in the 1980's, saving them from bankruptcy. He was 94.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/business/lee-iacocca-obituary/index.html
I remember my dad’s company was a supplier to Chrysler. They were in such bad shape (Chysler) that Iaccoca insisted that their cars would be used as payment instead of cash. The company was paid with something like 50/100 cars. They used the cars as perks and car pool cars. Chrysler survived, my dad’s company was bought out a few years later by German company.
I dated his daughter Kathy for a while when I was at cranbrook. I remember having dinner at their house and Lee asking someone to "please pass the fucking mashed potatoes" without batting an eye. Lee was first and foremost a line rat and was proud of it.
When Kathy and I stopped dating my dad was so sad. He said "it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as it is a poor one" but I didn't listen.
Also they threw the prom afterparty for us in 1977. Their home at the time was on Lone Pine so they had us park at Christ Church and had shuttle buses take us to their home. They had a band that played from midnight to about 4am, a food buffet that switched every hour towards more breakfast stuff as it got later and swim suits for everyone if we wanted to go into the pool.
Dad was, as usual, right.
I was at that party ! You forgot the cigars w Lee at 2 AM !
I was at that party ! You forgot the cigars w Lee at 2 AM !
You and I were classmates then at Cranbrook. I'm Don Hubbard.
Wow. Larry Shapiro - we were on same basketball team - and you used to take me to Michigan BB games - the Phil Hubbard era
Very small world. I remeber!
He also made the Pinto. Lido was one of the most fascinating characters in automotive history. Loved and hated. .. .
Yup.
After he insisted on installing a business atmosphere among the top brass Ford visited him in his office supposedly only a few times in eight years.
Iacocca complained his firing by Ford was 'extremely unfair'...
Yet, at Chrysler Iacocca fired 33 of the 35 VP's....
Very colorful life and career....
That doesn't make sense.
Iacocca was making record profits at Ford. In fact, the day he got fired newspapers were reporting yet another record profit quarter for Ford.
Sure sounds pretty unfair to me.
As for the 35 VP's or duchies, they were part of the reason Chrsyer was dying. They weren't doing their jobs well, and it showed as bankruptcy was imminent.
The firing sounded like a pretty simple matter of Henry Ford II just not liking Iacocca. For whatever reason they just didn't get along, with both having big egos. But HF was still THE MAN at Ford, so Iacocca was the one who lost that battle.
when I first started my career, I had a ton of old time Ford employees as clients.
They loved "Hank the Deuce", they hated Iacocca. Not a single nice thing to say about him. . . at all.
Put
In
Nickel
To
Operate
How about...
Fix
Or
Repair
Daily
First
On
Race
Day
Can never hear that car's name without thinking of Jon Stewart's story about driving a Gremlin in his younger days. He said that the Gremlin was invented for two reasons:
1. Birth control for young males.
2. So that the Pinto wouldn't feel so bad about itself.
My wife was driving a K car when I met her because her Dad worked for Jeep. I fell in love with Chrysler products since then though - especially Jeep and Dodge muscle cars. I have to give Iacocca credit for saving the company!
Aries and Reliant K Cars - some of the ugliest rides ever. The minivan was the best project he oversaw.
But they talked, and, you could switch the voice from male to female.
I bought a used New Yorker (Chrysler’s K model), with leather seats (Corinthian no doubt), turbo and “the voice” ...”your lights are on”, “your door is a jar” (no it isn’t, it’s a door).
I think that was my favorite car of all time. Loved it. Bad head gaskets though. Early implementation of turbos.
Anyone else here spend a ridiculous amount of time on North Campus in the Lee Iacocca Auditorium? G.G. Brown building, 1571. There's a large plaque on the wall outside the room.
Not sure if this is a current picture or not, but it looks exactly the same.
https://leccap-itech-opsrw.s3.amazonaws.com/panos/rooms/24_dfveve.html
I thought the name sounded familiar. Brings back memories of the ME lab courses.
I had a couple of classes in there. ME240 (Dynamics) and ME450 (Design) come to mind.
Did you have the old crazy Irish guy for ME 240? I can't remember his name but I took that class in the summer of 2005 and that dude was awesome.
Nah I had Bogdan Epureanu for it.
Iococca delivered the commencement address at my graduation. LSA 1983. He was entertaining.
“Here is to Mr. Iacocca and his failed experiment, the DeLorean.”
The Pinto?
—Michael Scott.
I bought one of his Plymouth Horizon Turismo units in the early 80’s. I’d been working a job and had saved a bit, so I bought my first brand new car. I loved the styling (I was a product of the times), but it was a reliability nightmare. I was glad to unload it two years later. Lee’s lasting legacy should be shepherding the Mustang into production as Ford’s GM in the early ‘60s.
The late 70's and early 80's saw some of the worst cars coming out of Detroit. Terrible quality and reliability on a large scale. I remember a rental car we got on a business trip in 1979 - Ford Fairmont. At one point we couldn't get the car to start and had to call the rental company. The guy came out, grabbed the steering column, shook it vigorously, and was able to turn the ignition on! What a piece of crap that car was.
The last GM car I bought was my first new car. It was a 1983 new model Chevy. After picking it up, the first time I tried to start it - it wouldn't. It had to be towed back to the dealership. It was all down hill from there. What a crappy car.
The Fairmont, along with the Maverick and Granada, has to be the nadir of Ford’s long history making passenger cars. Poor quality along with truely horrible suspensions and steering components made them wretched driving experiences. I got one for free from my Grandpa (a 1972 Maverick) and still hated it.
I had a friend in high school who was VERY proud of his mint green 1977 Thunderbird with vinyl seats that, in the summer, presented unique problems in adhesion, especially in the summer.
It was a HIDEOUS car, and I was usually hanging my head down whenever I was riding in it.
I went from a dodge challenger (318 engine) my first two years in college to a Horizon TC3. The amount of gas I saved was astounding and it was my first stick shift. Loved that car. Later traded it for a Grand Am after graduating. Sigh... The memories...
The first non-fiction book I read as a young adult was his biography. Great read
Anyone else think that Lee Iacocca and Bo have similar voice? look similar?
I thought that too, especially when he was trying to make an emphatic point. Pure Bo.
Will stow-n-go be an option in his casket? Kidding aside (too soon?), he was respected, even by those that didn't care for him. While I was never a fan of Chrysler product, it is still very hard to not respect the utilitarian nature of the minivan. RIP Lee.
RIP Lido. His autobiography was the first business book that I read. He invented the concept of a business leader as a star.
Also created the "mom mobile" of the past 40 years! OMG, I'm getting OLD!
Thanks OP -- was just wondering what happened to Lee Iacocca. Now back to that Andy Moeller mystery.
One of the truly more informative comment threads on this board, football or no. Thank you all!
One of the last true "car guys."
Should also mention his role in leading the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, which rehabbed those landmarks in the early-mid 1980s.
I remember vividly his thoughts about the differences in the mindset of Japanese car makers vs American car makers when Honda and Toyota started their domination. He remarked that if the American auto makers encountered a snake, a committee would be set up to study snakes. Another group would be formed and by the time they decided what to do, everyone would be dead from a snakebite. The Japanese on the other hand would cut the head off the snake and move on. I can say firsthand that was the case when I worked with the auto industry. I would make a suggestion for something to be done in a Honda plant and in a day I would have an answer. The American plants would have to think about what the proposal was and by the time a decision was made the problem at hand would spiral into replacing rather than repairing. Woody Hayes said it also, “ If you don’t believe the competition can’t beat you, look out, you might just get run over by a Honda.” I took those things to heart when I considered what the competition was doing.