- Hello, I'm Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Like many Americans, there are few things
that touch my life on a daily basis more than cars.
This evening, along with History,
I'm proud to present to you part three
of the epic story of the most American of machines.
Whether for work or play,
for short drive or a cross country trip,
cars are a vital part of American life.
For some, they're a tool, for others, a statement,
and for a select few, an obsession,
but no matter the role they play,
there's no doubt they've shaped out country
in ways that nothing else has.
This is the story of how the car made America.
- [Narrator] Previously on the Cars That Made America,
in the first half of the 20th century,
the world has seen a drastic change.
The modernization of America driven by the railroad,
oil, and steel is connecting people as never before
and building modern cities,
but nothing helped create the America
we know today more than the car.
These vehicles are responsible for the national road system,
the assembly line,
the middle class,
and the suburbs.
But the 1940s will see an end
to the greatest conflict the world has ever known
and as the nation turns its attention inward,
Americans once again demand innovation
as a new buzz word soon captures their attention:
modernization.
The Big Three react by empowering young designers
to create new visions
as the cars influence on America expands.
As Ford,
Chevrolet,
Dodge,
and Chrysler
give way to Delorean
and Iacocca,
as the innovators that pave the way.
(engines rumbling) (cannons firing)
World War II begins with the battle lines drawn
between good, the Allies,
and evil, the Axis.
(speaking in German)
The Nazis' secret preparation for war
gives them a huge head start on building massive arsenal.
The U.S. knows the Allies must close the gap
if they are to win the war.
They turn to an unlikely partner,
the Big Three for help.
- We'll have 20,000 ready by the end of the month.
Country's in good hands.
- The United States became the arsenal of democracy,
not solely in the United States,
but of Britain, the Soviet Union,
and America's other allies,
and so, Detroit became ground zero for the most astonishing
economic production performance in history.
Just as they had been cranking out millions of cars,
now they crank out millions of weapons and vehicles
- [Narrator] In addition to producing
over 300,000 tanks and trunks,
the Ford Motor Company led by Edsel Ford
promises the government a new B24 bomber every hour.
- Bear in mind that when this decision
was made to build bombers, there was no plan.
So, Henry Ford's son Edsel worked day and night on them
and within 18 months built a brand new bomber plan
and started making bombers.
- [Narrator] But soon after, tragedy strikes at Ford.
With his son Hank on duty in the Navy,
Edsel dies of stomach cancer at age 49.
- Edsel ran Ford Motor Company well.
As a matter of fact, Edsel Ford saved the company
while his father bucked him over and over.
- We need to progress or we'll be left behind.
- If your goal is to convince me,
it's been a pathetic attempt.
(tense music)
(mellow music) (birds chirping)
- We're gonna be late, Henry.
You're never late.
- Just a minute.
(somber music) (sniffling)
- After Edsel's death, Henry himself was in a daze
and kept saying, I wanted him to stand up to me,
that's what I wanted all this time, and he never did.
Clara was truly horrified by it all.
She held Henry responsible
because she thought that he treated their son so badly.
- Henry really took it hard.
He blamed himself for his death.
He was walkin' along in a fog,
and frankly, for several years, there had been problems
that Henry was getting a little bit of dementia setting it.
(birds chirping)
- [Narrator] Shortly after his son's death,
Henry Ford steps back in to take control of the company.
(tense music)
- Mr. Henry Ford has asked me to read the following,
"To Whom It May Concern,
"in response to the untimely death of my son, Edsel,
"I will once again assume the role
"of president of the company I founded 40 years ago.
"Effective immediately."
- [Board Member] The next thing you know,
we'll be making Model Ts again.
It'll kill the stock price.
- It was the Model T that built this company,
and don't any of you ever forget it.
- Ford suffered from the characteristics
of what made him successful.
He believed that he knew better than other people.
Great entrepreneurs almost always have this trait,
but there's a fine line
between self-confidence and arrogance.
- Henry Ford was autocratic, dictatorial, selfish,
ruthless, and wanted complete control of his company.
- [Narrator] The turmoil at Ford
coupled with the demands of wartime production
make President Franklin Roosevelt very nervous.
Knowing how badly he needs the Big Three to win the war,
he appoints former car maker William Knudsen
general to fix the problem.
Knudsen knows the turmoil at Ford
can only be stopped by a change at the top.
- [William] Hank.
- [Narrator] And quickly finds a solution
that he knows Henry will agree to.
- Please have a seat.
I have pulled a few strings around here.
Son, you're going home.
- Home, sir?
- Ford's manufacturing capacity
is too important to the war effort.
- If it's all the same, sir, I'd prefer to serve my country.
- Hank, someone needs to take the reins
from your grandfather and that madman Bennett.
The best way for you to serve your country is at Ford.
- Well, if those are my orders, sir,
I'll do everything I can.
(tense music)
- [Commentator] The government was worried
about the company being in total chaos.
- [Narrator] Hank returns home
to pick up where his father left off.
- Your father would've done so many great things,
if only your grandfather hadn't stopped him.
- I'm not sure I'm ready.
- Of course, you are.
Make this your own, Hank.
There's nothing standing in your way.
- [Narrator] But Henry still isn't ready
to give up control of the company.
(suspenseful music)
As the war ends on August 14th, 1945 with Japan's surrender.
- [Reporter] Two million New Yorkers jammed Times Square.
It's official, it's total victory.
- [Narrator] The Ford Motor Company is in dire straits.
The loss of Ford's wartime contracts
and no plans to modernize,
Henry Ford is voted out by the board,
and replaced by his grandson, Hank, who isn't the only one
looking to be the most powerful man at Ford.
- Harry Bennett thought that he
was going to be the president of Ford Motor Company.
And he didn't think much of Henry 2nd.
He didn't think he had any ability.
He didn't think he had any leverage.
- [Narrator] Bennett, Henry Ford's long time enforcer
has been angling for years to take over
and is secretly working to undermine Hank.
- Harry Bennett certainly had people in the factory
that were loyal to him,
and the situation was so fraught for a while
that Henry 2nd and those around him
were carrying guns around with them at work.
- [Narrator] Hank knows that Bennett poses a serious threat
to leadership and turns to an unlikely partner,
Bennett's personal hire, ex-FBI agent John Bogus.
(deeply sighs)
- It's long overdue, Hank.
He's destroying your company.
You're the one who has to take action.
Hank, he's got to go.
If not now, when?
- I know, I know he does.
- Well, you've gotta do it.
I'll be right here, I'll stand right by you.
I'll back you up 100%, but it's got to happen.
- Bogus has been the head of the Detroit sections of the FBI
and ironically, had been hired by Harry Bennett
but turned on Harry Bennett, allied himself with Henry 2nd.
- It's policy to be escorted into my office, Harry,
but the least you could do is knock.
- You don't deserve my respect.
You're a child running a billion dollar company
that you've done nothing to build, nothing!
- You're fired, Harry.
(chuckles)
My father wanted you out for years.
If only he could see you now.
- You can't do that.
The old man is still in charge.
- Well, last time I checked, he and I share a last name.
- This isn't over.
(dramatic music)
(canons firing)
- [Narrator] As the world recovers from World War II,
America's pursuit of progress is bolstered by victory.
While GM and Chrysler amass record profits,
Ford's young chairman, Hank
struggles to lead the company in a new direction.
To do so, he must rid himself
of his grandfather's security chief, Harry Bennett.
- John, make sure he's off the property in an hour.
And be careful.
(tense music)
(heels clicking)
- Let's not make this rough, Harry.
- You stabbed me in the back,
- Your time is up.
The old man is not in charge anymore.
- You son of a bitch.
(suspenseful music)
I told the old man to hire you!
- You've done nothing but abuse him
and manipulate his family for years, and it ends today.
- You can't get rid of me.
- Your name's not Ford, Harry.
That means you're expendable.
You should know that by now.
(tense music)
- Bennett was not dumb enough
to face off with an ex-FBI agent.
This is what Ford Motor Company had been reduced to,
two guys facing off with drawn guns.
And this is what Henry Ford II was taking over.
(birds chirping)
- Hank the Deuce was not
the reserved fellow that his father was.
He came in, he fired Harry Bennett,
fired about 1,000 of his cronies throughout the company.
He cleaned house.
He was determined to turn the company around.
- [Narrator] While Hank is working as quickly as possible
to straighten out the company,
the Ford family is dealt another blow.
On April 7th, 1947, Henry Ford dies
from a massive cerebral hemorrhage
just three months shy of his 84th birthday.
(somber music)
- Henry Ford's impact on our country was enormous.
100,000 people turned out
for his funeral to pass his coffin.
Telegrams came in from President Truman,
Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill.
The world realized that an enormous force,
not always a benign one, but something memorable,
had passed from us.
It was Henry Ford and his Model T
that I think more than any other single force
defined the America we live in today.
- Not only is Hank dealing with the death of his father,
and he's trying to step up to run the company,
a position that is not only high-profile,
but it's high stakes.
It's a lot for such a young man.
- [Narrator] Hank Ford needs to jump start
his struggling company.
- Ford was devoid of top management.
It was just filled with cronies
and people who weren't keeping up with the times,
especially when it came to management
and product management.
- [Narrator] With no one to question him,
Hank is now able to do what his father never could,
focus Ford on the future
and organize it to take on the corporate giant, GM.
Post-war America is optimistic and eager to modernize,
but with no new car design since the war,
Hank needs to make a groundbreaking change,
and his time in the Navy gives him an advantage.
He looks to a group of logistics experts
that helped achieve victory, the Whiz Kids.
- These were a group of people
who were business school graduates.
They had worked on logistics in the Air Force,
and they kind of marketed themselves
as a group after the war.
They went looking for someplace they could go
and they got intrigued by Ford Motor Company.
Here was a place that needed this.
- The one we think of the most is Robert McNamara
who would go on to become
the Secretary of Defense under John F. Kennedy.
- Ford Motor Company really had to catch up
to General Motors after World War II
and these very, very smart military officers
were given a pretty free reign of the large corporation,
which was really new to the world.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] While Hank is betting the Whiz Kids
will help him find a winning strategy,
Chrysler has surpassed Ford
to become the number two car maker
but not for producing cars.
With $3.4 billion in war contracts,
more than 45 billion today,
Chrysler does more to achieve allied victory
than almost any other company.
- This is a small token of thanks
for what you've done for this country.
- [Narrator] Its president, K.T. Keller
helped engineer the secret weapon that ended the war.
(flash clicks)
(mellow music)
- K.T. Keller developed nickel-plated tubing
for the atom bomb, which really could never have been built
if it were not for Chrysler.
- [Narrator] But, Chrysler quickly begins
to struggle after the war.
Innovation and America's new obsession with modernization
prove difficult for a company
built of efficiency and engineering.
Unlike Hank Ford, who turns to innovators
like the Whiz Kids,
K.T. Keller is slow to realize
that the country is changing quickly.
- Keller was very efficient during the war
at getting things done,
but Keller's weakness as time wore on
was he thought that customers would get
the wonderful mechanics of Chrysler Corporation
and that the style didn't matter.
Keller liked cars that were tall enough
so that a man could sit in the car still wearing his hat.
It didn't take long to realize
they were making big mistakes.
(tense music)
- It's really tough to stay at the top
in a competitive world and whatever you're trying to do
better be the cat's meow.
Otherwise, you don't exist.
- [Narrator] While Keller goes back to the playbook
that made him successful early in his career,
young Hank Ford sees an opportunity
to put his company back on top
by offering America what it's been waiting for,
the first truly modern American car.
- The designers are still smoothing things out.
Give it some time.
We'll make it perfect.
- There is no more time, John.
This car is the future of Ford.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] In the aftermath of World War II,
America has emerged as a super power.
The nation is suddenly prosperous,
and the future seems wide open.
Modernization led by the car industry
is changing the country in a profound way.
- [Announcer] This is the way America lives,
in comfortable homes
and in quality homes whose construction represents
a great advance in home building.
These are the homes for a growing America.
(upbeat music)
-[Narrator] As post-war Americans flock to suburbs,
they grow increasingly reliant on their cars
and begin demanding more from Detroit.
- [Announcer] With so much of our population on wheels,
today there's a freedom of movement
that is new in the history of man.
We have a much greater choice in where we live,
anywhere within driving distance.
- The automobile allowed the suburbs
to grow to what we know today.
For families to live out away from the city,
it created a lot of what we think of today,
of the nuclear family.
(birds chirping)
- Once the war was over,
car companies didn't have any new product in the pipeline,
and so when they resumed production,
what they were making was 1942 models,
and it takes a while to design an all-new car,
get tooled up to produce it and get it into production.
(tense music)
- It looks good, but it needs to be streamlined.
- Of course.
The designers are still smoothing things out.
Give it some time, we'll make it perfect.
- There is no more time, John.
This car is the future of Ford.
It can't look like a Studebaker.
- So, you want it new, perfect, and ready in no time.
Anything else?
- Yeah, make it fast too.
- To be a strong leader,
you can't be afraid to hurt a few feelings.
You have to be able to tell the truth when it counts,
and that can ruffle a lot of feathers.
- [Narrator] To get the Ford Motor Company
back to its place on top of the industry,
Hank knows he must beat the competition to market
with a newly-designed car.
- No cars were really produced
in the United States from 1940 to 1945,
and nobody was sure what kind of cars
would be the kind of cars that consumers would want
at the end of the war and going into the early 1950s.
(dramatic music)
- [Announcer] It's a long time now
since the idea first went down on paper.
- [Narrator] To develop his new car,
Ford invests countless man hours and over $72 million,
the equivalent of 900 million today.
- [Announcer] It's really more than a new automobile design,
it's new horizons, it's freedom of movement
for the people who will day drive it and ride in it,
who will value it as a possession,
second only to the homes in which they live.
- [Narrator] He also demands it goes from the drawing board
to the assembly line in just two years.
By the spring of 1948, the '49 Ford debuts,
beating GM and Chrysler to market
with the first all-new post-war car.
- [Announcer] Here is the Ford in your future,
the achievement supreme in modern automotive styling,
beauty combined with comfort, safety, and performance.
The new four-door custom sedan
is a perfect example of the balanced engineering
built into every model of the new 1949 line.
- The '49 Ford didn't look like
anything from the pre-war period.
It had what you might call an envelop body.
Some of the collectors call them shoebox Fords
because they are kind of squarish.
- [Narrator] Along with the new style,
the '49 model also features a much-improved
239 cubic inch flathead V8 engine
capable of almost 100 horsepower.
- Lookin' at the engine, it's a real simple lookin' engine.
It's flathead Ford because the heads are flat on top,
the spark plugs are visibly stickin'
right out of the top of it,
but the engine made pretty doggone good horsepower.
(engine rumbling)
(birds chirping)
(cheerful music)
- Like so many people these days, we live in the suburbs,
and Dave needs the car every day for business.
- [Narrator] With Americans realizing
that they need more than one car,
Hank's gamble on the '49 Ford pays off in a big way,
and Ford sells 800,000 in the first year.
- Three weeks ago, we bought another Ford.
It a whole new way of life.
Now, I'm free to go anywhere, do anything,
see anybody any time I want.
- [Narrator] Sales of the '49 model
are the highest for Ford since the Model T,
taking it from last place in the Big Three to second,
edging out Chrysler.
- Automobile design before World War II
was really about big fenders and running boards.
What the '49 Ford represented
was a totally new direction in style.
You didn't step onto the car, you stepped into the car,
and obviously, it was a huge hit
'cause it really saved Ford Motor Company.
(birds chirping)
(phone ringing)
- We got the deadline covered.
We'll have 20,000 ready by the end of the month.
You bet.
- [Narrator] With Ford outselling Chrysler 10 to one,
K.T. Keller is barely
holding onto his position as president.
He knows that he needs to respond
and bets big that America cares less about design
and more about what's under the hood.
He focuses on engineering,
demanding that Chrysler designers come up with something
better than Ford's flathead V8 engine.
- Hey Marty!
These are great.
Tell 'em in advertising it's a go.
- [Narrator] Chrysler introduces the firepower V8 in 1950,
(dramatic music)
an engine that features hemispherical cylinder heads,
the first of its kind.
The heads increase both compression and fuel combustion,
allowing cars to hit 180 horsepower,
nearly doubling Ford's flathead.
Chrysler's firepower V8 is fast enough
to do zero to 60 in 12 seconds flat,
starting an arms race for power and speed.
- [K.T. Keller] Yes, sir, uh huh.
- [Narrator] While Keller's innovation
pushes Chrysler ahead in horsepower.
- Excuse me.
Sir, I--
- No, you're in good hands.
- [Narrator] The outdated design hurts them with consumers.
- We got the deadline covered.
- K.T. Keller believed that the style didn't matter
and so he would've looked at the 1949 Ford
and said, this is too radical a design,
I think the public wants something that's different
but not too different.
- When you put a '49 Ford next to a '49 Chrysler,
and the Chrysler looks five years older.
They were way too conservative and it cost them.
- There is so many mistakes that happened with cars,
try to get the perfect car design you put together
is one of the hardest things in the world.
- [Narrator] Sales at Chrysler are dismal,
plunging the company into heavy debt
and back to third place behind GM and Ford.
- If sales don't pick up quickly,
we'll have to take out loans.
- Loans?
You're overreacting.
- [Narrator] K.T. Keller steps down
as president of the Chrysler Corporation.
Like Henry Ford before him, he's a victim of his failure
to realize the inevitable truth of American life,
progress waits for no one.
- Here is is, Alfred.
- [Narrator] An engineer at GM, Ed Cole
sees opportunity in the power race,
but he'll have to convince GM president Alfred Sloan.
- Why are you showing me this, Ed?
- [Ed] It's called a hot rod.
- [Alfred] Looks like a Chevy.
- Get in.
- [Alfred] I just ate.
- Aw, come on!
It wouldn't hurt you to have a little fun.
- Fun ?
- A car for every person for every purpose,
is that your line?
- Exactly, and I don't see the purpose of this.
- Fun, that's the purpose of it.
Kids drive cars like this because they're fast.
Get in.
(dramatic music)
- Alfred was set in his ways.
Alfred had a system set up
where he had cars that were working for the company,
and innovations was key when they had a problem,
but as far as getting ahead of the curve,
he didn't truly have a vision for it,
and I think Ed brought that to the table
whether Alfred liked it or not.
- [Narrator] Cole sees the need for speed
as GM's way to stay on top.
- Not too fast.
(car screeches)
(50s' style rock music)
- [Narrator] In the decade following World War II,
the men ad women who served
now turn their attention homeward
and embrace the car like never before.
As the Big Three face off in an arms race for engine supremacy.
With the modern look of the '49 model
and it's new flathead V8,
Hank Ford's car takes America by storm.
¶ A va va voom
- [Narrator] K.T. Keller puts V8 power in the wrong package
landing Chrysler in dire straits.
While GM's rising star, Ed Cole,
pitches what he believes is the next big thing.
- Not too fast.
(car screeches)
¶ A va va voom
- Was there a point to this little exercise?
Some of us have work to do.
- The point is under the hood.
- Why would anyone put a Ford engine in a Chevy?
- Speed, haven't you gotten that yet?
Ford's flatheads are fast and fun,
and all we're making are little six cylinders.
- So you wanna build an engine to compete with Ford's?
- Exactly.
Let's kick the hell out of the status quo.
- The Ford Flathead V8 was really the first engine
that the after market jumped on.
Anything that would make the engine lighter
and more powerful, you know, it's fun to go fast.
(exciting music)
- Boy, it's amazing what they could have done
back in the days with those flatheads.
(engines rumbling)
That baby could really sing,
and it had a really unique sound to it.
And, people to this day are still
customizing the heck out of the Flathead Ford.
- [Narrator] Cole knows that young Americans
are looking for speed, and he aims to deliver.
(exciting music)
Across the country, ex GIs
who learned engine mechanics on the front lines
start to customize.
Souping up their rides to get every bit of power,
giving rise to a new subculture.
Hot rodders.
- Guys are coming back from World War II
and they've had a pretty intense experience.
The adrenaline is still high,
they're looking for these thrills,
they've also become really familiar
with all of these ways of making vehicles faster.
- Hot rodding for America is creativity.
It is about performance but it's also about
marrying parts together to create something unique.
- People wanted something that went faster, made more noise,
just set people back in their seats and launched.
Whether it was drag racing or whether it was just
sitting at a light things shaking and idling.
- [Narrator] Under the hood of Hank Ford's
top-selling '49 Model, is a flathead V8,
the weapon of choice for hot rodders.
But customizing a Ford wasn't easy
and Ed Cole sees a huge opportunity.
- Ed Cole recognized the hot rod and drag scenes
started to become true American fixture
and knew that would translate
to a market that wanted that for street cars.
- [Narrator] Cole's answer is an engine
that beats Ford on power,
one that's affordable and easy to customize.
- [Announcer] The Motoramic Chevrolet,
with the history-making new Turbofire V8 engine.
- [Narrator] Aka the Chevy small block.
Cole's engine debuts in the 1955 Corvette
and Bel Air models.
- Chevrolet small block was a overhead valve engine
as opposed to a flathead engine.
It had better cooling
and it allowed for easier production of horsepower.
- The small block Chevy
is one of the most influential engines in hotrodding.
They're really transformable.
They're like Lego kits for horsepower.
- [Narrator] Sales of new Chevrolets skyrocket
to over a million cars, rapidly surpassing Ford.
(engine rumbling)
- When you go out there and you put it on,
whether in a Chevrolet or a Ford,
it definitely draws attention at the dealerships.
That terminology, what wins on Sunday sells on Monday,
is still going on today.
- [Narrator] GM's amazing success on the track
leads to a huge spike in sales.
Now, almost every other car
the American public sees is a car from GM.
- The public loves power.
They love the idea that their car
has more power than their neighbor's.
- [Narrator] Hank Ford knows he has to adopt a new strategy.
He believes Americans want a car
that can be everything to everybody,
appealing to both hot rodders and families.
- So John, do you have any more thoughts on design choices?
- If you let the designers do their work,
you're gonna be happy, trust me.
- [Narrator] Hank pours more than $400 million
into developing an experimental car line,
almost three and a half billion today.
It's a huge gamble, but he believes
it's the cutting edge of auto design,
the kind of car his father never had the chance to make.
He names the new car after his dad, Edsel.
(birds chirping)
- I don't know if the public is ready for this.
- It's the perfect tribute to your father.
What better way to remember him than this?
Trust me.
- It's forward thinking but maybe a little too forward.
- [John] It's not like anything we've seen before.
- Edsel Ford, he left behind a legacy of innovation
and the want to change things stylistically
and update things from a technology standpoint.
So, launching a car and putting your father's name on it,
not only was it a major stake from a marketing standpoint,
it was one that you have to get right.
(suspenseful music)
- Under this canvas cover,
it's the newest member of the Ford family of fine cars.
And now for the moment
I'm sure you've all been looking forward to, the Edsel.
(energetic music)
- [Narrator] The Ford Edsel boasts
a 410 cubic inch V8 engine that delivers 345 horsepower
and nearly 120 miles an hour,
and with its three-speed transmission
controlled by a teletouch panel on the steering wheel,
it's innovations are cutting edge.
- [Announcer] Here's the definition established
for the Edsel product.
The Edsel should be the smart car,
the smart car for growing America.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] But critics panned the radical design
and poor quality, the public agrees.
- Unfortunately, the styling and design
didn't live up to the hype
and people hated that horse collar grill.
It looked like someone took a toilet seat
and stuck it on the front of a car.
- There's so many people that said,
oh that car was terrible, I hated that car,
but I was one of the guys that did like the Edsel.
I thought the Edsel was a cool car.
Except we weren't the majority.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] The Edsel is a financial disaster,
hurting the Ford Motor Company's bottom line,
and for Hank, it's personal.
- I think after the Edsel, there was a short period
where Hank kind of closed down in a way.
He took a chance and missed,
and I think it was his biggest fear
from when he took over after his father's death,
he's finally realized that something
that's named after his own father,
he may not know whether he can recover.
- Your father would be proud.
It's a fine car.
Sometimes it's just a matter of timing.
- [Narrator] In the fall of 1959,
Hank Ford terminates production of the Edsel.
The failure is public and embarrassing,
and it prompts one of the biggest shifts
in car design America will ever see.
1956, America likes Ike,
rock and roll is sweeping the country,
and the Big Three are locked in an arms race
of innovation and power
like never before.
(engines rumbling)
(dramatic music)
- Now, it's the fun era time
where you didn't necessarily worry
about the weight of a vehicle and the efficiency of it
and put some amazing style into it.
For me, the '57 Chevy is just gorgeous.
- In those days, we'll go out and cruise around
with your girlfriend next to you and try to impress her.
(giggling)
- Everything was car-centric.
People would roll up on roller skates
and bring you your shake and fries to your car window,
and people's dates were in a car,
and you see a movie in your car.
I don't even think you ever leave the car.
- [Narrator] It's the golden age of the auto industry
and the Big Three are about
to get a major boost from Washington.
- [Announcer] Our highway engineers know the way.
- Congress in the '50s passed a law
to create the interstate highway system.
What they were doing was saying America is on the road.
- [Narrator] The Federal Highway Act
becomes the largest public works project in American history
that will eventually cost over $100 billion
and create a ribbon of highways
connecting every major city coast to coast.
With more highways, more people are buying cars.
By 1960, there are nearly 75 million on the road,
50% more than a decade earlier.
Detroit feeds demand with bolder designs,
new options, and faster engines.
But as gas prices begin to rise,
and the cost of living increases,
Americans are left wanting more for less,
and Detroit scrambled to give it to them.
- Yeah, bring the drawings.
Thanks, Bill, bye.
- [Narrator] One of GM's top engineers turned executive,
Ed Cole, sees the answer for an untapped market,
a lightweight budget-friendly but sporty new car.
- [Announcer] A small compact 80 horsepower
dollop of dynamite, a revolutionary new kind of car,
Corvair by Chevrolet.
- [Narrator] In 1960, Cole unveils his ultra-modern Corvair
with its air-cooled rear-mounted
European-inspired engine configuration.
Americans love this zippy, fun, affordable compact
hailed as the poor man's Porsche,
and GM sells over 200,000.
While the Corvair improves GM's bottom line,
(tires screeching)
one man sees it as a death trap, Ralph Nader.
- The Corvair, the car would suddenly
unexpectedly go out of control.
- Ralph Nader wanted to make sure that cars were safe
because as a young person, he had seen many of his friends
be killed and maimed in car accidents.
- [Narrator] For the first time,
a harsh spotlight is cast on the auto industry in America
and Nader chooses the Corvair as the focus for his crusade.
- You have designs of cars where on the steering wheel,
there's this massive spike 'cause it looks cool.
Well yeah, if you stop short,
right, you're gonna get spiked.
People are going through windshields
that are not shatter proof.
- Nader looked at the management of the Big Three
as the enemy of the American people.
They were the ones who were responsible
for all these deaths.
- [Narrator] The Corvair's design made it an easy target.
- The Corvair had swing axles and under certain conditions,
it would not handle as predictably
as the cars that Americans were used to.
- [Narrator] Sales of the Corvair plummet
from nearly 200,000 in year one to only 6,000 in year five.
While Washington moves to put tougher safety measures
on the roughly eight million cars made each year,
Nader's mounting attacks rattle every car maker,
except Pontiac's chief engineer, John DeLorean,
who has his own ideas about what's best for General Motors.
(anticipatory music)
- He was a guy that just had this immense confidence.
When he walked into the room, people knew who he was.
- Ed.
I wanna sell something that we can proud of, something fast,
a car that makes your eyeballs roll back in your head.
- You have to remember, John,
you can't just do whatever you want.
The government is worried about public safety.
- I'm just trying to make better Pontiacs.
Otherwise, what's the point?
- The point is to support General Motors.
We're not making race cars.
- Americans want speed and we need to deliver it
or they'll buy something else.
- [Narrator] DeLorean sees what Ed Cole doesn't.
(dramatic music)
(engines rumbling)
But the next generation of car buyers are focused on one thing,
the thrill that only an American muscle car can deliver,
and in Detroit, Woodward Avenue
becomes the center of the action.
(engines revving) (people cheering)
- Woodward Avenue goes from the Detroit River
all the way out through Pontiac,
must be more than 20 miles long,
and it was a very popular place to drag race.
- But what separated Detroit from any place else
was the fact that some of the car companies
would bring experimental cars under disguise
and drag race along with everyone else.
(engines rumbling)
- [Narrator] And DeLorean isn't the only executive
that sees what young America wants.
Lee Iacocca's star is on the rise.
- Iacocca was someone with an attention for detail
but also was someone with great insight
as to what the market would want.
- [Narrator] He starts as an engineer
but quickly moves to sales
and continues advancing up Ford's corporate ladder.
- Lee Iacocca kind of won a reputation for himself
as being very bright and very charismatic,
and he had gone up the food chain at Ford Motor Company
one promotion after another.
- Lee?
(laughing)
What's a Ford man doin' out here.
You're a little outta your element, aren't ya?
- Who are you to talk?
You guys make cars for little old ladies
to drive to church on Sundays.
- Not anymore.
Take a look.
Over 300 horsepower.
- What's the point?
GM's never gonna let you build this.
- That's why I'm not asking for permission.
- John, how many of these kids
do you think will be able to afford it?
I'm sure it's fun to drive, John,
that isn't enough.
People want a car they can drive
to the country club on Friday,
to the drag strip on Saturday, and to church on Sunday.
- The only one of those I care about is the drag strip.
(laughing)
- Lee Iacocca, part of his conflict with John DeLorean
was that they both had the attention of the industry,
Iacocca more as corporate executive,
DeLorean more as a critic of General Motors,
but they both knew exactly what people were lookin' for.
(engines revving)
- [Narrator] Both Iacocca and DeLorean
know they must double down on speed
or get left in the dust.
-[Narrator] The 1950s, an American age of optimism,
confidence, and style.
Reflected in Detroit's bold designs
are tail fins,
chrome, and hot rod engines.
(radio static)
The '50s give way to the turbulent '60s.
America is changing, people are standing up
for their civil rights,
(choppr blades whirring)
and new war in Vietnam is looming.
One maverick auto executive
believes that a restless nation
craves what only Detroit can deliver,
raw power, speed, and flash.
(dramatic music)
- Okay.
Let's see how this baby runs.
- [Narrator] After months of fine tuning
and real-world testing on Woodward Avenue,
John DeLorean is ready to unleash a monster.
(engine revving)
- That's how a car is supposed to sound.
(laughs)
- [Narrator] DeLorean builds the ultimate Pontiac,
secretly adding an option package
to the already-established Tempest.
Whe he was running Pontiac,
John DeLorean put a 389 cubic inch engine
into the Pontiac body and called that option the GTO
and that, it kind of circumvented the rules
'cause they weren't really making a car,
they were making an option.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] In the spring of 1964, DeLorean releases
the option package called the Gran Turismo Omologato
or GTO.
(energetic music)
The GTO offers an optional
four-speed four-in-the-floor transmission.
It features a Hurst shifter, dual exhaust, hood scoops,
and under the hood is a 389 cubic inch
6.4 liter V8 engine
delivering 325 horsepower.
- Pontiac GTO, that was an incredible car.
That just symbolized horsepower and symbolized speed.
(laughs)
Yeah, that was a really masculine, sexy car.
(birds chirping)
(tiger growling)
- Really what I consider DeLorean to be was a marketer.
He figured out how to create brand excitement.
(exciting music)
- [Announcer] Some sporty cars are only pussycats.
Pontiac's GTO is all tiger.
Agile,
nimble,
all wide track.
- DeLorean had a way of being brash and daring
and infusing his cars with his own personality.
- [Announcer] GTO.
- The people at Pontiac, his sales people
felt would only sell 5,000 in its first year.
They sold 35,000.
- [Narrator] Motor Trend chooses the entire Pontiac lineup
as Car of the Year for 1965.
And over the next five years,
Pontiac sells over 350,000 GTOs.
- That was the birth of the muscle car era.
They're these certain cars that have attracted a following
and created a myth that is far beyond the car itself.
- In that era, we saw engines that were produced
that had practically no business
being on the road except to race.
(engines revving)
- We used to drag race and have our buddies look out
for traffic and then flash lights or something like that
if something was going, but everything was a race track.
- [Narrator] Young America may want speed,
but General Motors management isn't on the same page.
- Says here, you're the auto industry's
flashiest new executive.
- That's not sayin' much in Detroit.
(laughing)
- You know how things work here, John.
The company comes first.
Just because your GTO is selling
doesn't mean it's good for GM.
- I thought you said selling cars is what it's all about.
- It is about selling cars, John,
but the government is lookin' to make an example
out of one of the Big Three,
so your GTO, it isn't helpin' us!
- I never thought you'd sell out.
- You know, times change, John.
- Clearly!
Since when do you back down from a challenge.
- You know, 200 horsepower is one thing, John,
400 horsepower, it's a death wish.
(dramatic music)
(phone ringing)
- [Narrator] As sales of the GTO continue to explode,
the Big Three become locked into
what's become known as
the horsepower wars.
(engine revving) (tires screeching)
- Everybody in the Big Three was building something
that had tons of horsepower,
and it became an arms race.
- The car that always stuck out to me was the Camaro.
It was loud and fast.
It just screamed awesome.
- Chevelle is a iconic car as they come.
I was a son to a race car driver that was Chevy guy.
He instilled that into the whole family.
- The El Camino, that's my take
on a beautiful custom muscle car,
and I feel like when I drive that car, I've got an attitude.
(engines revving) (dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Iacocca didn't beat DeLorean to market,
but he is determined to put Ford in the horsepower game.
His problem, his boss Hank Ford,
is still reeling from the flop
of the radically-designed Edsel,
a failure that cost him a staggering $350 million,
or 3 billion today.
- [Lee] Hank!
- [Narrator] Or three billion today.
- Not now, Lee.
- The Edsel disaster shouldn't
keep us from trying to innovate.
- That disaster, as you call it,
ruined my father's good name and cost this company millions.
- There's room for small cars, but the kids want speed.
- Well, who cares what the kids want.
- You should.
The under 25s are buying more new cars
than any other age group.
- Fine, but whatever you come up with,
it better not be expensive.
- It'll be the lowest-priced fast car money can buy.
(tense music)
- Lee Iacocca was a very interesting man in many ways.
He was a maverick.
His mind was very fertile all the time
and always thinking, what can we do next
that's different, that's better.
- [Narrator] Iacocca knows that Hank
is extremely cost-conscious,
so he uses parts from Ford's Falcon and Fairlane,
but he needs a new look for the car.
- He didn't build this car from scratch,
but what he was able to achieve is pretty cool.
The whole process of designing it
and building it and coming up with that,
I think that made him a really smart business man.
- [Narrator] Iacocca wants to show off
his new compact muscle car,
and he chooses to unveil it at the 1964 World's Fair.
- [Announcer] Out at the Ford pavilion,
there's a daydream corner called Mustang.
(dramatic music)
- Nobody knew how big a success it was gonna be.
Well, they sold hundreds of thousands of them.
Young people had a car that they could look at
and say, that's for me.
(engine rumbling)
- There were a lot of hot rods but very little style.
They were all go, no show.
The Mustang itself was go and show.
- The Mustang's killin' it.
Sales are through the roof.
- [Narrator] Ford rolls out nearly 700,000 Mustangs
in the first 18 months,
outselling the GTO nearly seven to one,
making Iacocca an automotive star.
- So, you made the cover.
- Hank, if you read it,
you'll see that I talked about how open you are
to new ideas, how your leadership was crucial.
- It's not about me.
- Really?
- It's about the car.
As long as it's the Ford Motor Company,
I want the cars front and center, not the executives
and don't forget it.
(tense music)
- You got it, Hank.
(exciting music)
(engine revving)
- [Narrator] By the early 1970s,
Detroit is delivering Americans more power than ever before.
Pontiac's GTO gives way to Ford's Mustang,
which sells almost a million cars in under two years,
propelling Lee Iacocca
to president of the Ford Motor Company.
- Detroit knows who's designing things now.
- [Narrator] But Ford still lags behind GM,
which is selling twice as many cars.
(engines revving)
Then, a perfect storm bears down
on the American car industry.
OPEC hits the U.S. with an oil embargo.
Gas prices go sky high,
the economy slows,
leaving the door open for outside competition.
- American automotive industry
was churning out these gas guzzlers.
That is fine when gasoline is 10 cents a gallon,
but it's a real problem
when it's three, four, five dollars a gallon.
- [Narrator] With their focus still on muscle cars,
the Big Three are slow to react.
- The tide was coming in heavily from the east,
Toyota, Honda, Nissan were coming in
and finding a big receptive audience
because they were fuel efficient, cleverly designed,
and they were small.
- We just didn't see it coming.
We got caught looking the wrong way.
- [Narrator] Smaller, more fuel-efficient cars
from Asia and Europe flood the market.
The German Volkswagen Beetle goes from novelty,
to selling 1/2 a million in 1970
overtaking the Model T
as the best-selling car of all time.
- [Announcer] Motor Trend magazine tested the
Toyota Corolla with the new 102 horsepower engine
and came up with this.
- [Narrator] Japanese auto makers in the 1970s
go from selling a few 100 thousand cars in the U.S.
To 1.5 million, increasing sales by a staggering
500 percent.
- Turns out the Germans are making
better cars than the United States.
The Japanese are making just as good
and a lot cheaper cars,
and now Detroit's gettin' hurt 'cause they have been,
they've been fat, dumb and happy for way too long
and they've lost their competitive edge.
- [Narrator] American car makers need an answer,
and Hank Ford turns to Lee Iacocca to find it.
- [Hank] How's the new one comin' along?
- Don't worry, Hank, I'll save our asses again.
- Well, you better have it ready by September.
We're rolling out a big ad campaign to support it.
- Look, I want it to be ready too,
but we're moving faster than we should be.
- Never explain, never complain.
Those are your words, not mine.
- Hank,
you can take the credit,
you can count your profits,
but let's be clear about who's doing the actual work.
It'll be ready when I say it's ready.
- Lee Iacocca, if he had been in any other place,
would probably be a chief executive officer,
but this was a family company.
Part of his conflict with Henry Ford II
was the fact that he was a hired hand.
It was very humiliating for him.
(mellow music)
- [Announcer] Meet the Pinto, just born.
- [Narrator] The Pinto was released
after one of the shortest development periods
in automotive history, just 25 months,
the cost, $1,800.00 or $11,000 today.
The Pinto is a hit, selling over 350,000 in the first year.
There's now a mad dash to enter the compact car market
and dominate foreign imports.
Chrysler rushes to release its Plymouth Cricket,
which boasts more interior room than the Pinto.
(anticipatory music)
At GM, Ed Cole is feeling
the pressure to match Ford's success,
and looks to the man who brought him the muscle car,
flashy executive John DeLorean.
- John DeLorean is headstrong, determined,
able to latch onto a dream and see it through to the end,
and let's add he was a megalomaniac in so many ways.
He was a guy who had facelifts and things like that,
so he looked a lot younger
but a very distinctively handsome individual.
- Let's call him Maverick
because he had to have ideas that were new,
- I mean, it's just gettin' women, oh!
- We missed ya the last couple of weeks.
Hope you went somewhere nice.
- I told you, I was having surgery in L.A.
How have things been around here?
- I'm up to my ass in labor negotiations.
How's the compact design coming?
- It'll be ready for the fall,
just in time to ruin my reputation.
- I know it's not your dream car, but get behind it.
Ford's Pinto is tough competition.
- You got it, Ed.
We'll destroy the Pinto.
(dramatic music)
(phone ringing) (typewriter clicking)
(engine rumbling)
- [Announcer] Motor Trend magazine has named our Vega
their 1971 Car of the Year.
(exciting music)
- [Narrator] Chevy's Vega features
an innovative lightweight aluminum engine
and comes in a hatchback, sedan, and even a station wagon.
GM sells more than a 1/4 million Vegas in the first year,
but the success of the Vega and Pinto
is about to come to an end.
(crashing) (dramatic music)
- Pintos and the Vegas, they were really pretty bad cars.
The American car manufacturers, through their arrogance,
kind of foisted off on the public,
well, here's an economy car,
but it's really a cheap car and it's not a good car.
- [Narrator] Consumers discover the Vega
has defective axles, throttles, and rust-prone engines
prompting a huge recall costing GM millions.
- [Narrator] Reports come out of a faulty
fuel tank design on the Pinto.
It causes fires and explosions.
Sales immediately fall off.
(tense music)
Ford recalls a million and a 1/2 of them.
But Chrysler's Cricket fairs even worse,
selling less than a 1/10 of the Pinto and Vega,
helping put the once great auto giant
3/4 of a billion dollars into debt.
All three go down as some of the worst cars ever made.
(engines rumbling)
Despite the failure of this compact,
DeLorean maintains a high-profile
as his tumultuous personal life keeps him in the headlines.
- Try actin' like a damn grownup!
I mean, look at how you're dressed.
(dramatic music)
You've got to tone things down, John.
I can't have you appearing
in some Hollywood gossip rag every other week.
- My private life is my business.
- Your missin' the key word there, private,
and I'm readin' about it.
- All press is good press, isn't it?
Don't worry, I won't be damaging GM's reputation any longer.
I quit!
Go find someone else to do all the work around here.
(dramatic music)
(phone ringing)
- [Narrator] As the '70s roll on,
the U.S. is battling an economy weakened
by recession and surging oil prices.
-[Nixon] We will break the back of the energy crisis.
We will lay the foundation for our future capacity
to meet America's energy needs
from America's own resources.
- [Narrator] The Big Three are struggling
as foreign cars begin overtaking the market.
To beat the imports, Detroit is forced
to double down on cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars.
- There is something to be said between
Henry Ford not wanting to change the Model T
and the American automobile industry
not wanting to change to small cars,
and you really need to be one step ahead
of where things are going, not one step behind,
and unfortunately, that's where
the American industry fell for a while.
- [Narrator] Following the Pinto recall,
Hank Ford loses trust in Lee Iacocca
and shows him the door.
- When Lee Iacocca got forced out of the Ford Motor Company,
it was a very humiliating event for him.
He really thought of himself
as the future leader of the Ford Motor Company
and was devastated when they threw him out of there.
For number three automaker Chrysler,
times couldn't be worse.
After the failure of the Cricket,
the company is a billion dollars in debt
and on the verge of bankrupcy.
(tense music)
- Chrysler was really facing
an existential crisis of finance
and was about to fail.
- [Narrator] The solution to Chrysler's problems
may come from an unlikely place.
- Just think about it Lee,
if you come to Chrysler, you'll be the captain of the ship.
- Nobody wants to be captain of the Titanic,
certainly not me.
(dramatic music)
- If anybody can turn things around here, it's you.
- You have to remember that Lee Iacocca, at that point,
probably wanted revenge against Henry Ford II
more than anything in his life.
He was motivated by this great animus
and this great injustice of having been thrown out
of this car company that he felt that he should be leading,
and so, what was the best way
to actually prove that he was right?
- When were you thinking of having me start?
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] In the fall of 1979,
Lee Iacocca becomes Chrysler's president.
His task, saving the company from financial collapse
and the 300,000 jobs in the balance.
- Lee Iacocca went to the government
and he said, in order to save my company,
I'm going to need some help
because even though Chrysler wasn't the biggest,
it would've had an enormous negative impact on the economy.
Think of the number of people
who would've been jobless overnight.
- [Narrator] Iacocca convinces the U.S. government
to bail out Chrysler with $1.5 billion.
But Chrysler is losing $150 million a quarter,
and Lee Iacocca isn't the only one
fighting to save his career.
(engine revving)
- That's how a car is supposed to sound.
(laughs)
- Like so many other men in history,
John Zachary DeLorean wanted to build his own care,
and there are many hurdles and many pitfalls
and despite that, DeLorean decided to venture forth anyway.
- [Narrator] He calls his enterprise
the DeLorean Motor Company,
but without the financial resources of the Big Three,
DeLorean gets creative about managing costs.
He decides to make his American dream overseas.
(dramatic music)
- The DeLorean is completed in Northern Ireland,
which of all places to build a car,
I mean his car plant was literally between
Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in the height
of what were known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland,
and the reason it was put there
is that the British government
was willing to give him more than $100 million.
- [Narrator] As John DeLorean executes
a new vision of car making, Lee Iacocca struggles
to save Chrysler even with the government loan.
- Iacocca took on this ship
that was takin' on a lotta water.
- [Narrator] He bets on something Americans
have never seen before and never knew they needed.
(audience applauding)
- [Announcer] A wagon so versatile,
so right for America today, we can't build enough of them.
- What Chrysler did with the minivan was very significant.
It met the needs of so many people
in a way the station wagons did not.
- [Narrator] Chrysler sells a million
in the first two years.
With the success of the minivan,
Lee Iacocca pays back the federal bailout
seven years ahead of schedule.
- I have one and only one ambition for Chyrsler,
to be the best, what else is there?
- [Narrator] But as Iacocca rescues Chrysler,
he and rival John DeLorean
will compete to determine the future of American car making.
(dramatic music)
By the late 1970s, America is hurting.
Inflation is at an all-time high,
and 1.3 million people are unemployed.
As cheaper foreign imports continue to flood the market,
the Big Three fight for their survival.
- I think that there was a strong sense of denial
in Detroit
about what was happening to them,
which was the rise of companies like Toyota and Honda.
Remember, Detroit once owned 90% of the market,
and their share of the market just kept dwindling.
- [Narrator] Foreign car makers soon control
1/4 of the U.S. market and are expanding.
With a projected loss of $1.6 billion,
Hank Ford is forced to raise sticker prices,
but still fails to make a profit
and steps down from the company
he once saved from ruin.
The board elects a new chairman to take the helm.
For the first time, Ford Motor Company
is run by someone outside the family.
But Hank leaves behind a legacy of innovation,
like his father and grandfather before him.
(peaceful music)
(birds chirping)
- Henry Ford II, I mean, he turned out
to be a terrific car guy, as indeed Edsel had been.
Maybe there's a gene that does run
in the blood in that family.
- [Narrator] Ford not only survives, it thrives
continuing as one of the largest
and oldest corporations in America.
As foreign imports continue to flood the U.S. market,
Lee Iacocca makes a move that shocks the industry,
partnering up with the enemy, foreign auto maker Mitsubishi.
- Iacocca had to collaborate with Mitsubishi
because they needed to understand
and also to be able to sell to new market segments
that wanted smaller cars
that the Japanese makers were manufacturing.
- Chrysler and Mitsubishi break ground
on half billion dollar factory,
employing nearly 2,500 Americans.
It's an expensive experiment
that will either make or break Chrysler.
As Iacocca rolls the dice on the company's future,
maverick car maker John DeLorean
is ready to show the world his vision of the future.
(peaceful electronic music)
10 years after leaving GM,
his DMC-12 finally rolls off the assembly line.
It's a crowning moment for one of
the biggest legends in the auto industry.
- It was eight years from the time
he conceived the car until the first one was actually built,
but John Z. DeLorean, he's the guy that made it happen.
He was the one that took all the risks.
He was the one that had to come up
with the money to make it all work.
- [Narrator] The DMC-12 features futuristic gull-wing doors
that require less side clearance
than traditional hinged doors.
The fiberglass underbody is covered
with a brushed stainless steel shell
and the car is powered by a rear-mounted
130 horsepower Renault V6 engine.
(birds chirping)
- That car was so ahead of its time
in body design, it's incredible.
- When I was a kid and I saw a DeLorean,
I thought it was the coolest car ever.
It just looks space aged you know the wing doors,
and there was nothin' else like it.
- [Narrator] The DMC-12, named in part
for its $12,000 anticipated price tag,
sells for $26,000 to cover costs.
- DeLorean not only had sales goals that were unrealistic,
as the numbers started coming in and getting crunched,
the pricing became unrealistic,
and there was no way they were ever
gonna sell these cars at that price.
- [Narrator] While critics praise the futuristic look,
they hate what's under the stainless steel exterior.
- It doesn't handle well.
It doesn't drive well.
It's not easy to get in and out of.
- [Narrator] Its sales numbers are a disaster,
only hitting 9,000 units, and DeLorean faces bankruptcy.
- When a man like John DeLorean,
who has this dream of building a successful car
suddenly sees that he's running out of money,
he becomes desperate, and he made some very unwise choices.
(indistinct chattering)
- [Narrator] The early '80s, America is strruggling
with a deep recession.
Manufacturing jobs are disappearing,
and the car industry is hardest hit.
Unemployment skyrockets.
One in four auto workers is without a job.
For maverick car maker John DeLorean,
conditions couldn't be worse.
- People weren't clamoring for a DeLorean DMC-12,
and he had these enormous costs,
and the bills kept adding up.
He became desperate.
- John DeLorean probably isn't that much different
from so many other successful men
in the automobile industry.
You have to be egotistical
and unwise when it was necessary for him to resort
to questionable tactics to keep his company alive.
- [Reporter] John DeLorean ended up in court
charged with trafficking cocaine.
- DeLorean gets sucked into what in essence was a sting
and appears on video cameras hoisting
some cocaine and says, this is as good as gold.
(reporters yelling)
- Thank you.
- He was acquitted,
but the bottom line was his career
in the automobile industry,
for all intents and purposes, was over.
(tense music)
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] DeLorean's fall ends a decades-long rivalry
with Lee Iacocca, who's taken a chance
on yet another risky deal of his own.
A billion and a half dollar partnership
with foreign car maker,
Mitsubishi.
(audience applauding)
Together, they release the Eclipse.
Mitsubishi's sales jump by over 32% in one year,
making the company a player in the U.S.
But what most people don't realize
is that Chrysler shares the profits.
- Buying an American car, yeah it's patriotic,
but also I think it's up the manufacturers to earn that.
They need to earn our business as well,
and we need to be creating the best cars
and trucks in the world period.
- [Narrator] Iacocca continues to rewrite the playbook.
His next move is to get the country
to buy American once again
with an iconic vehicle, the Jeep.
- Chrysler wanted to have Jeep,
and American Motors owned Jeep,
and so Chrysler bought American Motors to get Jeep.
- [Narrator] Under Chrysler, Jeep gets a facelift,
the new model called the Grand Cherokee.
The Grand Cherokee becomes such a hit,
it makes popular a whole new class of cars
called the sport utility vehicle.
Chrysler goes from one foot in the grave
to earning 723 million in profits.
(dramatic music)
in 1992, at 67, Lee Iacocca,
the automotive genius responsible
for some of America's most innovative vehicles,
retires on top.
- As an executive, as an innovator, as a car guy,
and also a master salesman,
he really has an incredible record of success,
and he saved, well, there was a cult of personality
around Lee Iacocca at Chrysler, but in essence,
that's all that Chrysler had.
Lee Iacocca deserves a reputation of being
one of the great auto executives of the 20th century
and not just for all the things he did at Ford,
but also for saving Chrysler.
I don't think any other executive could've done that.
- [Narrator] As the last of America's
great car pioneers steps down,
a new chapter of innovation begins.
(engines revving)
From the turn of the 20th century to today,
the car has transformed the country
and defined the American experience.
- What's gonna happen in the 21st century, I don't know.
- The automobile, it's going to reach a point
where it's even a more interesting and
important machine than it's been in the past
and that's gonna be because of driverless technology,
and it's gonna do a lot of things in society.
It's really gonna transform the way we live.
- Manufacturers have some driverless cars
on racetracks where they're competing
with race car drivers at that level, that's amazing.
- I will not have an autonomous car.
I don't even wanna be alive when that is gonna be.
I just love to drive and I love to have that control myself.
- Driving is something that's primal
that people love and enjoy doing,
but the nice thing is, I think in the future,
you'll be able to pick and choose when you wanna drive.
It's a brave new world that we're getting into,
it's really exciting.k
(exciting music)
- I think that most Americans
think a car is their birthright,
but it's also in the way our whole society is organized.
It's influence is so pervasive
that it's really no more visible than the air we breathe.
(dramatic music)