Lee Iacocca

Lee Iacocca was an American automobile executive whose three-decade run at Ford Motor Company and his rescue of the Chrysler Corporation made him the public face of Detroit during the 1970s and 1980s. Born Lido Anthony Iacocca on October 15, 1924, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Italian immigrant parents, he earned an industrial engineering degree from Lehigh University and a master's from Princeton before joining Ford as an engineering trainee in 1946.

He moved into sales, climbed through the divisional ranks, and championed a sporty, affordable coupe aimed at baby-boom buyers. The Ford Mustang launched on April 17, 1964, sold more than 400,000 units in its first year, and put him on the covers of Time and Newsweek the same week. He was named president of Ford Motor Company in 1970 but was fired by Henry Ford II in July 1978.

Three months later he became chief executive of a near-bankrupt Chrysler. He persuaded Congress to approve a 1979 federal loan guarantee, accepted a one-dollar salary, and oversaw the K-car platform and the 1983 minivan. The loans were repaid seven years ahead of schedule.

His 1984 autobiography Iacocca sold more than seven million copies, and he chaired the foundation that restored the Statue of Liberty for its 1986 centennial. He retired from Chrysler in 1992 and died on July 2, 2019, at his Bel Air home, aged ninety-four.

The name Lee comes from the Old English leah, meaning woodland clearing or meadow, a topographic surname turned given name. He adopted it from his middle name's anglicized echo, and he carried it as the salesman who could close any room.