Mary Barra: Lee Iacocca ‘Loved America And The Auto Industry’
9
Sponsored Links
Leaders in the Detroit automotive industry are paying respects to former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca today, who passed away at the age of 94 on Tuesday.
General Motors CEO Mary Barra sent out a statement over twitter Wednesday addressing Iacocca’s death, saying the celebrity auto exec “loved America, the auto industry and the people who make it run – from the shop floor to the showroom. He will be missed.”
Paying tribute to Lee Iacocca. He loved America, the auto industry and the people who make it run – from the shop floor to the showroom. He will be missed.
— Mary Barra (@mtbarra) July 3, 2019
Lido Anthony Iacocca started his career when joined Ford Motor Company in 1946 before climbing the executive ladder and becoming its president in 1970. After he was fired by Henry Ford II, Iacocca was courted by Chrysler to become its CEO. There he implemented two highly successful designs that were previously rejected by Ford – the so-called ‘Mini Max’, which would go onto to become the hugely popular Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, and the budget-friendly FWD K-Car line. Both of these products essentially saved Chrysler at a time when it was struggling financially, with Iacocca’s minivan design going on to become an icon of 1980s and 1990s Americana.
In addition to Barra, Ford chairman Bill Ford also paid tribute to the legendary Iacocca in a statement released Wednesday.
“Lee Iacocca was truly bigger than life and he left an indelible mark on Ford, the auto industry and our country,” he wrote. “On a personal note, I will always appreciate how encouraging he was to me at the beginning of my career. He was one of a kind and will be dearly missed.”
Iacocca in 1978
Fiat Chrysler confirmed reports of Iacocca’s passing Tuesday night.
“The company is saddened by the news of Lee Iacocca’s passing,” the automaker said in a statement. “He played a historic role in steering Chrysler through crisis and making it a true competitive force. He was one of the great leaders of our company and the auto industry as a whole.”
Source: The Detroit News
Subscribe to GM Authority for more Mary Barra news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
- Sweepstakes Of The Month: Win a Corvette Z06 and 2024 Silverado. Details here.
Sponsored Links
It’s a shame Barra couldn’t learn anything from Lee Iacocca. Instead she’s following the path of Roger Smith. I was under the assumption you learned from mistakes. I guess it’s me that’s mistaken!
Right. Lee sacrificed his own salary to save his company. Instead Mary shuts down plants and throws thousands of employees out the door, during record profits. Meanwhile, she’s drowning in her tens of millions every single year. That’s an injustice, Mary. Shame on you. What are you doing with your money, Mary? Solving world hunger? I doubt it.
Lee was first a salesman. The man could snow cones to Eskimos.
He was a guy that could make decisions, was finically responsible and could convince people to buy cars that were build on horrible platforms.
If you look at the cars he built they all were cheaply built but people loved them. The first Mustangs were junk. Remove the gas tank there was no trunk. Yet the styling saved the day.
The K car and Other fwd Chrysler’s were junk but he got people excited about them.
The man was gifted and he really did love our country unlike some today.
His success will be measured and studied for years. Though most of his cars will be for gotten outside the Mustang, Viper and Town and Country mini van.
In fact you want to give credit or blame for the CUV…. it was Lido. Had the mini van not come with utility the CUV would never had been tried.
Note he also gave us the Granada, Pinto and Mustang II. Not one is perfect.
Mustang II. Boredom Zero
Even though the Mustang 2 was not a true sports car, it ended up saving the Mustang. It had a shape to it, where most cars in that era were downsized like squared off boxes.
Bob Lutz, Tom Gale and Roy Sjoberg really get the credit for the Viper. Iacocca was just the one that gave the greenlight for production after the enthusiastic response the Viper concept recieved from the general public at the ’89 NAIAS.
Iacocca was a heck of a salesman. He managed to convince Americans that the K Car was better than an E Class Mercedes. And Americans bought them by the 100’s of thousands.
I remember a commercial where Iacocca compared the K Car to the E Class and boldly claims that his chariot is superior to the Merc. That commercial is nowhere to be found now today, perhaps in embarrassment.
Before Trump there was Iacocca. A true merchant of BS.
Everything Lido was GM could use a bunch of now. He made lemonade out of lemons. He was the embodiment of the great American car guy CEO.
But during these times of wokeness, we simply can’t risk disrupting the global hierarchy and offending legions of America haters at home and abroad with shameful stuff like traditional American ingenuity, market dominance and success.
RIP Lee