Tuesday, August 26, 2008

1957 Chrysler Diablo Concept

The 1957 Chrysler Diablo is another one of those concept cars that inspires the purchase of lottery tickets. Should you win said lottery, the car will be put up for auction at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in the RM Auctions’ Sports & Classics of Monterey event. The sales dates for the 200-car event are August 15 - 16, 2008.

The Diablo is just another car on the long list of successful concepts and production models penned by Virgil Exner. Exner had the Diablo produced for Chrysler by the Italian coachbuilder Ghia for the 1957 U.S. auto show circuit, where it was a huge success. Not only is the Diablo one of the most valuable concept cars from the 1950’s, it is also deceptively large in scale. The car comes in at 22 feet long and sits on a 1955 Chrysler 300 chassis. The car supposedly cost Chrysler over a quarter million dollars to produce — a fraction of the what the car will likely sell for come August, even when adjusted for inflation.


000_chryslerdiablo57.jpg

001_chryslerdiablo57.jpg

Ford Fires Lee Iaccoca

Ford Motor Company Chairman, Henry Ford II, fired Lee Iaccoca from the position of president of Ford Motor Company, ending a bitter personal struggle between the two men. Since his grand emergence into the spotlight with the release of the Ford Mustang in 1964, Lee Iacocca had risen precipitously through the ranks at Ford, ascending to the position of company president in 1970.

As president of Ford, Iacocca–previously known exclusively as a sales and marketing expert–set into motion a rigorous cost-cutting policy that would increase Ford’s stagnating annual profit margin. Within four years, he recalls, his policies had earned him “the respect of the one group that had always been suspicious of me: the bean counters.”

Over the course of the 1970s, Iacocca instituted quarterly reviews of Ford staffers by their superiors. Known as an authoritarian, Iacocca would not take excuses from his employees, and he held each employee personally responsible for their output. His policies proved successful, but as Iacocca became more and more obsessed with making Ford profitable, he neglected to maintain the approval of the family business’s volatile boss. Personal relations between the two men turned from distant to ugly. The rift is often explained by Ford’s notion of Iacocca as a lower-class hired gun, a gifted immigrant salesman good for business and little else.

Lee Iaccoca (center)

…………….One Ford public relations spokesperson explained, “Mr. Ford always regarded Mr. Iacocca as a rather vulgar Italian.” And all the while, Iacocca believed that his future in the automotive industry rested wholly on his balance sheets. Iacocca admits to becoming blinded by his hefty salary, and to ignoring Ford’s poor treatment of him. He claims, though, that “in 1975, Henry Ford started his month-by-month campaign to destroy me.”

Ford launched company investigations into travel expenses of leading executives. He targeted many of Iacocca’s protégés. Iacocca was repeatedly asked, at the risk of losing his job, to fire close friends of his. Iacocca wouldn’t resign because he had spent his whole professional career at Ford and, as he puts it, “I wanted that $1 million [salary] so much that I wouldn’t face reality.” Ford installed a series of new positions to decrease Iacocca’s power as company president; finally, in 1978, he called Iacocca into his office to inform him his services were no longer needed. Iacocca stated that Ford gave him no reason for the firing. “It’s personal. Sometimes you just don’t like somebody,” Ford had said. So Lee Iacocca, arguably the automotive industry’s most successful executive, was left without a job. He would later agree to run Chrysler.

1955 VW Introduces Karmann-Ghia

Volkswagen introduced the Karmann-Ghia coupe at the Kasino Hotel in Westfalia, Germany. As the European car market finally recovered from the war, Volkswagen felt that it needed to release an “image car” to accompany its plain but reliable “Bugs and Buses.” 55-74vw_karmann_ghia_2.jpg
Volkswagen was not the only automotive company looking for a flagship car at the time. Chevrolet had released the Corvette, and Ford the Thunderbird. The Chrysler Corporation had contracted with the Italian design firm Ghia to create designs for a Chrysler dream car; however, none of the designs came to fruition.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen had contracted with German coach-builder Karmann for their own image car, and Karmann, in turn, had sub-contracted to Ghia for design offerings. Eventually Ghia supplied Karmann with a version of their Chrysler design, modified for the floor plan of the Volkswagen Beetle.

The Karmann-Ghia was released as a 1956 model by Volkswagen. The car’s sleek lines and hand craftsmanship attracted the attention Volkswagen had hoped for. Nevertheless, as sporty as the Karmann-Ghia looked, it suffered from its 36hp flat four engine in the area of power. Still, the Karmann-Ghia sold 10,000 units in its first full production year ,and with the release of the convertible in 1958, production reached 18,000 units for one year.

Sales climbed steadily through the 1960s, peaking at 33,000 cars per year. While General Motors and Ford focused on their Corvette and Thunderbird, respectively, Volkswagen found that the Bug had increased in popularity, especially in the U.S. market. Executives decided to focus their marketing attention on the Bug, abandoning the Karmann-Ghia, which was last produced in 1974.

source:classicar.com