He called Henry Ford II “evil,” a “spoiled brat” who was “always on the lookout for palace revolts” and cared only for “wine, women and song.” Iacocca said that when he pressed Ford for a reason for his dismissal, Ford replied, “Well, sometimes you just don’t like somebody.”
Iacocca’s ‘Arrogance’
Ford, who chose not to respond publicly to Iacocca’s book, “never warmed to Iacocca” and “disliked his arrogance, brashness and vanity,” David Lewis, a University of Michigan professor, wrote in “100 Years of Ford” (2003).
In a 1982 interview with Lewis, Ford faulted Iacocca’s vision.
“He got thoroughly confused in his later years by what the hell to do,” Ford said. “He had a new program every two or three months. The organization was totally discombobulated.” The transcripts of Ford’s interviews with Lewis were sealed, at Ford’s insistence, until 1992, five years after Ford’s death.
Two weeks after his ouster from Ford, Iacocca took over as president and chief operating officer at Chrysler, brought on by Chairman John Riccardo just as the company reported a quarterly loss of $160 million, its largest at the time.
“I really didn’t want to retire at 54,” Iacocca said at a press conference. “I really didn’t want to be banished from the auto scene.”
Second Chance
His 14 years at Chrysler gave Iacocca the chance to pursue initiatives that had met resistance at Ford. These included the fuel-efficient K-series Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant models as well as the first U.S.-produced minivan, introduced in 1983 as the Plymouth Voyager and Dodge Caravan. He steered Chrysler’s 1987 acquisition of American Motors Corp., with its Jeep franchise.
First, though, Iacocca had to save Chrysler from looming bankruptcy.