Lee Iacocca

Lee Iacocca was born on October 15, 1924 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA as Lido Anthony Iacocca.

Though often called "The Father of the Mustang", his role was more supportive. in 1961 the idea that became the Ford Mustang was developed by Don Frey, and the design came from the Ford studio under Joe Oros, Gale Halderman and L. David Ash. They pitched the idea to Lee, who was the General Manager of Ford Motor Co.'s Ford Division at the time, and gave the the go-ahead to do it. There was still one problem: the project was to be done in relative secrecy. They still needed Henry Ford II's approval. Lee approached him with this idea of a "Youth Car" but Henry was skeptical because the Edsel disaster of 1958-1960 was Still Fresh in his memory and he didn't want a repeat of that fiasco. Lee assured Ford that he could sell 100,000 of the Mustang in its first year. Henry reluctantly gave his approval. The story goes that when Lee got up to leave Henry's office, Henry stopped him and asked, "Are you absolutely sure you can sell 100,000 of these things?" Lee looked him in the eye and said, "Yes." Henry said, "You better!" As it turned out 681,551 1964 1/2-1965 Mustangs were sold, shattering all quarterly and first-year model sales records, an accomplishment that still stands.

Satisfied the Ford Thunderbird no longer needed a sporting image, Lee was looking for a replacement for the Thunderbird convertible. Stylist Bill Boyer said when Lee saw an artist's rendition of a four door Thunderbird, he stared at the picture while rolling his cigar in his mouth and said "That's the replacement for the convertible!" The four door Thunderbirds were built from 1967-1971.

In 1979 he went to the administration of President Jimmy Carter to seek government loans to bail out Chrysler Corp., something that had never been done for a big company before. He was granted the loans because it was felt that if a major corporation like Chrysler failed, thousands upon thousands of Chrysler employees would lose their jobs and the ripple effect of a company that big closing down could cause possibly hundreds of thousands more job losses (it was also noted that it could be used politically to hammer the Carter administration by the Republicans in the 1980 elections). Lee used the money to develop the K-cars. Many auto enthusiasts believe that the fact that Iacocca could convince the public to buy those poorly made, underpowered and underwhelming cars is a testimony to what a great salesman he really is.

Release of his book, "Talking Straight" by Lee with Sonny Kleinfield. [1989]

Release of his book, "Iacocca: An Autobiography" by Lee with William Novak. [2007]

He was an actor, known for Reagan (2011), CBS Reports (1959) and Liberty Weekend (1986). He was married to Darrien Earle, Peggy Johnson and Mary Kathryn McCleary.