After becoming chairman and CEO in September 1979, he led a cost-cutting program that closed plants and slashed tens of thousands of jobs. He also sealed Chrysler’s deal with Congress and President Jimmy Carter’s administration for $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees, a rare government intervention in the marketplace that folk singer Tom Paxton enshrined in tune:
“I am changing my name to Chrysler,
I am going down to Washington, D.C.
I will tell some power broker
What they did for Iacocca
Will be perfectly acceptable to me.”
In 1983, seven years earlier than required, Chrysler finished repaying the $1.2 billion in government-backed loans it had used.
On Television
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.”
Lido Anthony Iacocca was born Oct. 15, 1924, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the second child of Nicola Iacocca and the former Antoinette Perrotto.
Rheumatic Fever
His father had immigrated to the U.S. from San Marco, Italy, in 1902, and worked for almost two decades in Pennsylvania. He returned to Italy to get his mother, and while there, he met and married the 17-year-old daughter of a shoemaker. Back in Allentown with his wife and mother, he started a hot-dog restaurant, Orpheum Wiener House, which became regionally famous as Yocco’s. A daughter, Delma, was born, followed by their son.