Okla-homey
1/6/2009, 07:53 AM
January 6, 1980: Chrysler saved
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/9326/28288608sv5.png
29 years ago today, President Jimmy Carter signed a bill authorizing $1.2 billion in federal loans to save the failing Chrysler Corporation. It was the largest federal bailout in history.
The "Big Three" American car makers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) had suffered through the 1970s, as Japanese competitors led by Honda and Toyota outperformed them in quality and price.
Chrysler, which lacked the vast cash reserves of GM and Ford, was brought to the brink of bankruptcy by 1980. The federal bailout, which required Chrysler to find billions of matching private financing in order to receive the federal money, brought Chrysler back from the brink.
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4112/leeiacoccanh0.jpg
Lee Iacocca
Lee Iacocca, the charismatic executive largely responsible for Ford's successful Mustang, joined Chrysler in late 1979, and engineered the company's return to profitability during the 1980s. After its bail-out, one of the keys to Chrysler's twenty-year renaissance was development of the mini-van, which had incredibly broad appeal and sold like cold pop in August throughout the 1980's. Their popularity was ultimately eclipsed in the 1990's by the rise of the SUV.
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5002/leetb4.jpg
1984 Dodge mini-van
Interestingly, Henry Ford II had wanted nothing to do with the mini-van, which doomed the project at Ford. Hal Sperlich, the driving force behind the Mini-vax at Ford had been fired a few months before Iacocca and was waiting for him at Chrysler, where the two would make automotive history.
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/8386/iacoccasperlichch5.jpg
Sperlich and Iacocca
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/637/insane7zoao4.jpg
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/9326/28288608sv5.png
29 years ago today, President Jimmy Carter signed a bill authorizing $1.2 billion in federal loans to save the failing Chrysler Corporation. It was the largest federal bailout in history.
The "Big Three" American car makers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) had suffered through the 1970s, as Japanese competitors led by Honda and Toyota outperformed them in quality and price.
Chrysler, which lacked the vast cash reserves of GM and Ford, was brought to the brink of bankruptcy by 1980. The federal bailout, which required Chrysler to find billions of matching private financing in order to receive the federal money, brought Chrysler back from the brink.
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4112/leeiacoccanh0.jpg
Lee Iacocca
Lee Iacocca, the charismatic executive largely responsible for Ford's successful Mustang, joined Chrysler in late 1979, and engineered the company's return to profitability during the 1980s. After its bail-out, one of the keys to Chrysler's twenty-year renaissance was development of the mini-van, which had incredibly broad appeal and sold like cold pop in August throughout the 1980's. Their popularity was ultimately eclipsed in the 1990's by the rise of the SUV.
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5002/leetb4.jpg
1984 Dodge mini-van
Interestingly, Henry Ford II had wanted nothing to do with the mini-van, which doomed the project at Ford. Hal Sperlich, the driving force behind the Mini-vax at Ford had been fired a few months before Iacocca and was waiting for him at Chrysler, where the two would make automotive history.
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/8386/iacoccasperlichch5.jpg
Sperlich and Iacocca
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/637/insane7zoao4.jpg