“. . . Henry was himself growing a little dizzy with everything happening around him. And the more disoriented he became, the angrier he got. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ford sat through countless meetings in which young engineers and product planners, most of them acolytes of Lee Iacocca, wanted the company to build small front-wheel-drive passenger cars. There was always another meeting where Ford had to listen to proposals that went against his fundamental product beliefs — that small cars meant small profits. Ford wanted to continue building large rear-wheel-drive sedans that offered high profit margins. His finance staff beat back the challenges, but the younger firebrand executives such as Sperlich and Krandall were coming up with new studies and new data that suggested that the Ford Motor Company was straying off course by not building a small front-wheel-drive car. And this drove Henry crazy.”
— Richard A. Johnson, Six Men Who Built the Modern Auto Industry (2005)
RE:SOURCES
- Johnson, Richard A.; 2005. Six Men Who Built the Modern Auto Industry. Motorbooks, St. Paul, MN: p. 89.
Also see ‘Lee Iacocca got lucky with the 1964-66 Ford Mustang’
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