Word: lacocca
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...some luster on the rest of the car line as well as to reach relatively small but profitable markets where other carmakers are not competing. Later this year Chrysler will introduce the ultimate in elongated K-cars, the roomy five-passenger Chrysler Executive Sedan and a seven-passenger limousine. lacocca has also ordered...
While he has been restructuring the corporation, lacocca has never stopped scrutinizing new model designs. A little while ago, he took one look at a mock-up of a 1986 subcompact, then curtly told the stylists that the front grille and bumper made them look like "Dodg'em cars." The lights burned late in the styling studios for weeks thereafter. lacocca is unrepentant. Says he: "The guys who have it tough in this company are the product guy and the marketing guy because I grew up in those areas and think that I know more than they'll ever know...
...staggering. But almost anyone in Chrysler's finance department can tick off where the money will come from. Part of the total, some $823 million, was spent last year, and another $2.5 billion or so is in annual budgets through 1986. A large chunk is in hand in lacocca's $900 million cash kitty. And he is counting on generating the rest from profits and cash flow over the next four years. It is not a scenario that can withstand unpleasant surprises. Says Alan Webber, a former transportation-department aide who is now a senior research associate at Harvard...
...sell the new models, lacocca has greatly strengthened another weak link: Chrysler's dealer base. After losing about 1,000 outlets out of 4,800 during 1979 and 1980, he succeeded in signing up roughly 300 new showrooms last year alone. Equally important, more of the dealers are making a profit: 80% in 1982, in contrast to only...
Over the long run, and in that big battle for the international market, Chrysler will need help from other automakers to survive. lacocca talks of plans for a new corporate entity he calls Global Motors. Rather than a megacorporation formed from actual mergers between car companies in different parts of the world, he envisions a setup in which Chrysler would undertake joint ventures with foreign manufacturers to get economies of scale or low-cost labor or design or technological expertise. The combines he talks about do not sound so different from the one GM and Toyota announced last month...