His passing was confirmed by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in a statement. The death was caused by complications from Parkinson’s disease, the Washington Post said, citing his daughter Lia Iacocca Assad.
Studied in business schools, emulated by a generation of executives, Iacocca was a star salesman for cars and for himself, spurring periodic talk of running for president. (He never did.)
His autobiography was by far the top-selling hardcover nonfiction book of 1984 and 1985, according to the New York Times. For more than three decades, since his appointment by President Ronald Reagan, he led the effort that has raised more than US$700 million to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
“Lee Iacocca was truly bigger than life and he left an indelible mark on Ford, the auto industry and our country,” Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford said in a statement. “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 at a Chrysler briefing on earnings in February 1991. — Reuters
Iacocca arguably ushered in the era of the celebrity auto executive, with others such as Sergio Marchionne, Elon Musk and Carlos Ghosn following in his footsteps. Marchionne died last year, and Ghosn fell from grace in November after his arrest for financial crimes related to his tenure at Nissan Motor Co.
“I didn’t always agree with him, but he was a brilliant visionary," said Bob Lutz, former Chrysler president, who worked closely with Iaccoca and clashed with him at times. “He was flawed in many ways but when I rated the CEOs I knew, he came out on top.”
Iacocca was no miracle worker, however, and the American auto industry’s struggles didn’t end with his tenure. Japanese carmakers saw their US market share grow 10-fold, to about 30%, during his 23 years leading two of America’s Big Three automakers. Chrysler, which averted collapse in 1980 in what may have been Iacocca’s crowning achievement, was buffeted by the financial crisis and recession of 2008, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2009.
“It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes,” Iacocca told Newsweek at the time. The company emerged as Chrysler Group LLC, majority-owned by Italy’s Fiat SpA. It is now named Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.
Iacocca first came to prominence when, at 36, he was named general manager of Ford Motor Co.’s flagship Ford division in 1960. With a group of like-minded young executives, he formed what became known as the Fairlane Committee — named for the inn where they met for brainstorming dinners — to discuss how to design a low-cost, sporty car that would entice younger, more affluent families to become two-car households.
“It had to be a sports car but more than a sports car,” Iacocca wrote in his memoir. “We wanted to develop a car that you could drive to the country club on Friday night, to the drag strip on Saturday and to church on Sunday.”
The Mustang, introduced at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, was an unqualified hit. Iacocca and the car appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek, with Time calling him “the hottest young man in Detroit.”
As for the car itself, Time swooned: “Priced as low as US$2,368 and able to accommodate a small family in its four seats, the Mustang seems destined to be a sort of Model A of sports cars, for the masses as well as the buffs.”
Iacocca “will probably go down in history as the first modern example of a charismatic business leader,” Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana wrote in 2002. Iacocca’s turnaround of Detroit-based Chrysler “made him a celebrity and even a national hero,” one who relied on an “inspirational leadership” style that presaged that of Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs, among others, he said.
Ford sold more than 400,000 Mustangs during the first model year. The car’s styling captured young buyers, and Mustang clubs sprang up around the country.
Iacocca and his wife Darrien in 1994. — Reuters
Not everybody believed Iacocca deserved the share of credit he got.
“The model was totally completed by the time Lee saw it,” Eugene Bordinat Jr., Ford’s design director at the time, told Time in 1985. “We conceived the car, and he pimped it after it was born.”
As much as for any of his corporate decisions, Iacocca became known as the straight-talking, patriotic pitchman in Chrysler’s television commercials, produced by New York-based firm Kenyon & Eckhardt Inc., in which he vouched for Chrysler’s cars as superior to those from Japan and Germany.
“If you don’t agree they’re the best Chryslers ever made, the very best America has to offer at a sensible price, then I’m in the wrong business,” he said in one ad.
His trademark line went down in advertising history: “If you can find a better car, buy it.”
