Bob Lutz Recalls The Late Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca
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This past week, the auto industry lost a titan in Lee Iacocca. Although the former Ford and Chrysler executive never worked for General Motors, there’s no denying Iacocca influenced GM substantially.
Famously, Iacocca brought the Ford Mustang to life and was behind the acquisition of American Motors, which saw Chrysler take control of Jeep. Both the Mustang and Jeep have GM punching back to this day, thanks to Iacocca.
At the late executive’s calling hours, former Chrysler, Ford, and GM executive, Bob Lutz, spoke highly of his former boss at Chrysler. He told Automotive News (subscription required) that Iacocca was often a my way, or the highway kind of CEO. And that kind of thinking helped keep Chrysler around in the 1980s.
Lutz recalled the Chrysler CEO and chairman often had plans and ideas that were never in line with anyone else. One of those plans was the acquisition of American Motors, or AMC, in 1987. Lutz said the decision was opposed by nearly everyone, including himself at the time, but Iacocca was adamant to see it through.
“We’d just barely returned to financial health. … But we got the Jeep brand,” Lutz said. Jeep helped revive Chrysler at a time it so desperately needed hit, after hit, after hit.
“If you have to point to one single act that should make him famous and remembered in corporate America, that’s the one,” Lutz said of the AMC acquisition.
Of course, Chrysler would go through another massive restructuring period at the end of last decade, which saw Fiat eventually take majority control in the automaker. That gave us Fiat Chrysler Automobiles as we know it today.
However, without Iacocca and his brilliant business making decisions, GM may have had one less rival today. Iacocca will be laid to rest at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday.
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Source: Automotive News
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Iacocca was also the first person to bring the minivan to market. Not as sexy as the mustang but was a home run for chrysler.
Bob and Lee just did not get along because they were both Alphas in the same room. Also Lee made sure Bob did not get his job when he retired.
Lee was like most good auto leaders that had some great success with the Mini Van and the Mustang. Few people thought the Jeep AMC deal was a good one but time has turned it around.
On the other hand Lee also is the one behind the Pinto, Mustang II and Granada along with some other so so cars in the 70’s at Ford. No one is perfect in product but Lees record shows he was willing to try and because of that he was more right than wrong most of the time.
If anything he is the father of the present CUV market. If it were not for the mini van there would be no CUV market today as it all started with the Chrysler vans on how to get more utility from a small vehicle. Like or not that should be something that is tied to Lees legacy as it truly has had an effect on the auto industry just as much as the Model T and VW bug.
A sporty fwd car?, miss those days…….
I wouldn’t criticize the the Mustang II or Granada too much. The II sold well enough to keep the Mustang brand alive. Otherwise the pony car market would’ve died by ’79. As for the Granada, it was the car people wanted, and it cost Ford very little to build, since it shared the Maverick platform. And that dated back to the ’60 Falcon. No, they were nothing special, but they did their assigned jobs well: Attract hundreds of thousands of customers and keep them happy until better times come along.
Well the Mustang II did not keep the Mustang alive as it was dead those years. The Trans Am actually got the ball rolling in that era and it got the attention of Ford and Chevy to enter the segment with better and new products.
As for the Granada it didn’t do Ford much good. It generated a ton of excitement when it came out till people found it was just another cheap Ford with a new body and lots of Lee Chrome.
Lee was gifted taking crappy cheap platforms and turning them into new products. But he also lived with the idea more chrome the better and often clashed with designers over it. He liked the big chrome grills that did not always fit the cars well.
But Lee got more right than wrong in the long run. But too often we tend to forget the warts too. If you don’t have any failures you are not trying hard enough.
It is a shame Lee cut Larry Shinnoda lose from Ford when Bunkie left. After seeing the 69-70 Mustangs and the 70 Torino one can only imagine what they could have done together.
I liked Lee and he was a very smart guy. While not a fan of most of his products he has left his imprint on the industry as like some of the bigger names have.
But I could never tell the Granada and Mercedes apart!
The rich, Corinthian leather! Oh, that was a bit later.
why hasn’t this site mentioned the passing of ross perot? he had bit of a history with gm and roger smith in the 80s.
didn’t he try to shake up gm as the japanese were grabbing market share with better vehicles?
his famous quote was : “I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At GM, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is go hire a consultant on snakes. Then you get a committee on snakes, and then you discuss it for a couple of years. The most likely course of action is — nothing. You figure, the snake hasn’t bitten anybody yet, so you just let him crawl around on the factory floor. We need to build an environment where the first guy who sees the snake kills it. “
Iacocca was a management genius, don’t judge his success in the industry by a few models of cars, judge him by the profit and jobs he created for every company he managed. I used many of his management techniques over my 40-year career and they were simple, yet effective in having a well-motivated team that produced results. I learned more practical management ideas from his books than my MBA. Mustang, Minivan, Grand Cherokee (birth of the luxury SUV), the Statue of Liberty and even some of the first electronic bicycles. Great Job Lee, you will be missed.