Lee Iacocca

Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca ( EYE-ə-KOH-kə; October 15, 1924 – July 2, 2019) was an American author, engineer, and executive who developed the Ford Mustang, Continental Mark III, and Ford Pinto cars while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and then revived the Chrysler Corporation as its CEO during the 1980s. He was president of Chrysler from 1978 to 1991 and chairman and CEO from 1979 until his retirement at the end of 1992. He was one of the few executives to preside over the operations of two of the United States' Big Three automakers.

Iacocca authored or co-authored several books, including Iacocca: An Autobiography (with William Novak), and Where Have All the Leaders Gone?.

Iacocca was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 15, 1924, to Nicola Iacocca and Antonietta Perrotta, Italian Americans from San Marco dei Cavoti, who settled in the steel producing region of the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania. Members of his family opened a restaurant, Yocco's Hot Dogs, which has since grown to five locations in Allentown and its suburbs. Iacocca was reportedly christened with the unusual name "Lido" because he was conceived during his parents' honeymoon in the Lido district in Venice. However, he denied the basis for his christened name in his autobiography, calling it romantic but untrue; his father, Iacocca wrote, travelled to Lido with the brother of his future wife, long before the marriage.

Iacocca attended Allentown High School in Allentown, where he graduated with honors in 1942. He then attended Lehigh University in neighboring Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a degree in industrial engineering. At Lehigh University, he was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, and Theta Chi fraternity.

After graduating from Lehigh, he won the Wallace Memorial Fellowship and attended Princeton University, where he earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering in 1946.

Iacocca joined Ford Motor Company in August 1946 as an engineer. After this brief stint in engineering, he asked to be moved to sales and marketing, where his career flourished. While working in the Philadelphia district as assistant sales manager, Iacocca gained national recognition with his "56 for '56" campaign, offering loans on 1956 model year cars with a 20% down payment and $56 (~$663.00 in 2025) in monthly payments for three years. His campaign went national, and Iacocca was called to the Dearborn headquarters, where he quickly moved up through the ranks. On November 10, 1960, Iacocca was named vice-president and general manager of the Ford Division; in January 1965 Ford's vice-president, car and truck group; in 1967, executive vice-president; and president on December 10, 1970.

Iacocca participated in the design of several successful Ford automobiles, most notably the Ford Mustang, the Continental Mark III, the Ford Escort and the revival of the Mercury brand in the late 1960s, including the introduction of the Mercury Cougar and Mercury Marquis. He promoted other ideas that did not reach the marketplace as Ford products, including cars ultimately introduced by Chrysler: the K car and the minivan. Iacocca also convinced company boss Henry Ford II to return to racing, claiming several wins at the Indianapolis 500, NASCAR, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Eventually, he became the president of the Ford Motor Company, but he clashed with Henry Ford II. On July 13, 1978, Iacocca was fired from Ford, even though the company posted a $2 billion profit for the year (about $9.87 billion in 2025).

In 1968, Iacocca foresaw the need for domestically produced, small, fuel-efficient vehicles, and proposed a vehicle that weighed less than 2,000 pounds and would be priced at less than $2,000 (about $19,000 in 2025). Although Ford's European subsidiary was already selling such a model, the Ford Escort, a team of Ford designers was assigned to create the exterior and interior of an entirely new car, which would be named Pinto. The Pinto entered production beginning with the 1971 model year. Iacocca was described as the "moving force" behind the Ford Pinto.

In 1977, there were allegations that the Pinto's structural design allowed its fuel-tank filler neck to break off and the fuel tank to be punctured in a rear-end collision, resulting in deadly fires. In 1978, all 1971–76 Pintos were recalled and had safety shielding and reinforcements installed to protect the fuel tank.

In 1984, Iacocca co-wrote an autobiography with William Novak: Iacocca: An Autobiography. It was the best selling non-fiction hardback book of 1984 and 1985. The book used heavy discounting, which would become a trend among publishers in the 1980s. Iacocca donated the proceeds of the book's sales to type 1 diabetes research.

In 1988, with Sonny Kleinfeld, Iacocca co-authored Talking Straight, a book meant as a counterbalance to Akio Morita's Made in Japan, a non-fiction book praising Japan's post-war hard-working culture. Talking Straight praised the innovation and creativity of Americans.

On April 17, 2007, Simon & Schuster published Iacocca's book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, co-written with Catherine Whitney.

Iacocca partnered with producer Pierre Cossette to bring a production of The Will Rogers Follies to Branson, Missouri, in 1994. He also invested in Branson Hills, a 1,400-acre housing development.

In 1993, he had joined the board of MGM Grand, led by his friend Kirk Kerkorian. He started a merchant bank to fund ventures in the gaming industry, which he called "the fastest-growing business in the world". In 1995, he sold his interests in several Indian gaming projects to Full House Resorts, a casino operator led by his friend Allen Paulson, becoming a major shareholder and later a member of the board of directors.

Iacocca married Mary McCleary on September 29, 1956 and they had two daughters. She died from type 1 diabetes on May 15, 1983. Before her death, Iacocca became a strong advocate for better medical treatment of type 1 diabetes patients, who frequently faced debilitating and fatal complications, and he continued this work after her death.

Iacocca's second marriage was to Peggy Johnson. They married on April 17, 1986, but in 1987, after nineteen months, Iacocca had the marriage annulled. He married for the third time in 1991 to Darrien Earle. They were divorced three years later.

On July 2, 2019, Iacocca died at his home in Bel Air, at the age of 94, from complications of Parkinson's disease.

His funeral mass was held on July 10, 2019, at St. Hugo of the Hills Catholic Church and he is buried at White Chapel Memorial Cemetery in Troy, Michigan.

In his 2007 book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, Iacocca described how he considered running for president in 1988 and was in the planning stages of a campaign with the slogan "I Like I", before ultimately being talked out of it by his friend Tip O'Neill.

Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey discussed with Iacocca an appointment to the U.S. Senate in 1991 after the death of Senator John Heinz, but Iacocca declined.

Politically, Iacocca supported the Republican Party candidate George W. Bush in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, he endorsed Bush's Democratic Party opponent, John Kerry. In the 2006 Michigan gubernatorial election, Iacocca appeared in televised political ads endorsing Republican candidate Dick DeVos, who lost. Iacocca endorsed New Mexico governor Bill Richardson for president in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, he endorsed Mitt Romney for president.

The high amount of publicity that Iacocca received during his turnaround of Chrysler made him a celebrity and gave him a lasting impact in popular culture. In addition to his acting role in Miami Vice, Iacocca also made appearances on Good Morning America, Late Night With David Letterman and the 1985 Bob Hope TV special Bob Hope Buys NBC? while concurrently it was common to see depictions of elderly, bespectacled businessmen with charismatic, salesman-like personas, such as in an ad campaign by the Rainier Brewing Company. Iacocca's success serving as Chrysler's pitchman influenced other companies to feature executives in their marketing, such as how fast food chain Wendy's has successfully utilized company founder Dave Thomas as a corporate mascot since the early 1990s. Iacocca's image was also invoked by rival automaker Ford in the marketing campaign for the 1993 Mercury Villager minivan, which depicted a competing car company led by an unhappy boss with a physical resemblance to Iacocca viewing the Villager with consternation because it is outselling their minivan. Fictional businessmen and middle managers, such as Michael Scott on The Office, have been shown reading Iacocca's books and attempting to emulate his methods. In a manner similar to Ronald Reagan, period pieces produced in subsequent decades have used images of Iacocca and the Chrysler K-car to invoke the 1980s. The 2009 film Watchmen, which is set in an alternative history 1985, took this in a unique direction by showing Iacocca (portrayed by Walter Addison) being assassinated by the film's antagonists, which has been said to have angered Iacocca when he learned about it.

In Ordinary People, a song from Neil Young released in Chrome Dreams II and Bluenote Café, Lee Iacocca is quoted in the lyrics as a notable representative of the capitalistic world.

Iacocca, portrayed by Jon Bernthal, is a major character in the 2019 film Ford v Ferrari, which is a dramatization of the 1960s Ford GT40 program. The film was released shortly after Iacocca's death.

Tom Paxton wrote a song about the bailouts called "I Am Changing My Name To Chrysler," which mentions Iacocca prominently in the chorus. It was critical of the bailout for serving corporate interests ahead of supposed good business or capitalist principles.

He was also portrayed by Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live.