Word: townsend
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Speaking grimly at a crowded Detroit press conference, Chrysler Chairman Lynn Townsend repeated a somber theme that he has been sounding ever more urgently since the collapse of U.S. auto sales last fall. "We need leadership out of Washington, and in my opinion we're not getting it," Townsend said, calling for deep tax cuts and much more ease in monetary policy. He added: "We're in a very, very serious recession. The spiral is still going down...
Because that idle inventory cost Chrysler's dealers $2 million a week to finance, Townsend decided to reduce it fast-first by virtually stopping production, then by initiating the cash rebates on new-car sales.* Chrysler lost so much money in the last three months of 1974 because sales and production were running far under the company's breakeven level of some 275,000 cars per quarter (current quarterly production rate: about 140,000 cars). But the company's backlog of unsold cars is now gradually approaching a normal level of 80 days or so, which means...
Financial Cushion. Townsend, a veteran accountant, seems in no danger of being replaced, because it is in bad times that the Chrysler board most appreciates his specialty. As one former Chrysler executive puts it, Townsend is "a cold-blooded cost cutter." The company recently renegotiated a $455 million, three-year revolving credit agreement with a syndicate of 80 banks led by New York's Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. The banks gave Townsend his financial cushion mainly because he convinced them that he could and would slash Chrysler's overhead to the point where the company can make money...
...farce, tragedy or bathos? Maria Schneider, 22, star of Last Tango in Paris, signed herself into a psychiatric hospital while filming Carlo Ponti's The Babysitter in Rome. Not for treatment, but simply to be with her inseparable companion of the past two years, Joan ("Joey") Townsend, 28, the daughter of ex-president of Avis Robert Townsend, who wrote Up the Organization. Joan had been picked up that morning at Fiu-micino Airport, babbling irrationally. On learning that her friend had been taken to a psychiatric hospital, Maria rushed to join her. The following three days were macabre. Paparazzi...
Chrysler produces two compacts, the Plymouth Duster and Dodge Dart. Says Townsend: "We have been reducing the number of models we make and increasing the commonality of parts." Chrysler once used up to 60 different window regulators in its cars; now the number is down to five. According to Chrysler President John Riccardo, "The new program means longer production runs for each model and fewer parts to stock in plants and dealerships...