Mr. Upward Automobility

Lee lacocca thought he had a better idea. An eager young sales manager in the 1950s, he figured he would pep up a dull convention of 1,100 Ford salesmen by proving in a live demonstration that if he dropped an egg from a 10-ft-high ladder onto Ford's new crash-padded dashboard, the egg would not break. He was wrong. Until last week, that was one of the very few times that lacocca came close to having egg on his face. After 32 years with Ford, the plain-spoken son of an Italian immigrant was a Horatio Alger-hero on wheels, a paradigm of upward automobility. Yet unlike others who have risen through the sober, polyester-clad ranks of America's most important industry, lacocca is perpetually outspoken, fashionably dressed in European worsteds and as obviously at ease in a barroom throbbing with used-Ford salesmen as in a hearing room full of Senators. If humans can be said to have automotive analogues, lacocca suggests nothing so much as a Ford Mustang, that stylish-yet-democratic car whose creation is perhaps lacocca's greatest triumph.

Lido Anthony lacocca was born in Allentown, Pa., into what can be described as a Ford family. His father drove a Model T, launched one of the nation's earliest rent-a-car agencies, made and lost several pre-Depression fortunes by renting Fords and trading in local real estate. Young Lido decided he wanted to enter the auto business, preferably with Ford. He got an engineering degree at nearby Lehigh University, signed on with Ford as a trainee, earned a master's in engineering at Princeton and then surprised Ford recruiters by rejecting a quiet career in automatic transmissions for the tough world of sales.

In ten years as a salesman, lacocca sold so many cars that Ford Vice President Robert McNamara brought him to Detroit as marketing director for Ford trucks. In 1960, at the precocious age of 36, lacocca attained what was at one time his life's goal, a Ford vice presidency (in charge of the Ford Division). It was not a complete triumph; his plan had been to be there by age 35. "He had a schedule for himself as to what amount of money he would like to be making," his wife Mary once said. "Like maybe in five years he might like to be making $5,000 and in ten years $10,000. It was on a little scrap of paper."

Though a millionaire several times over by now, he lives with his wife and younger daughter (their other daughter is at college in the East) in a comparatively modest 13-room Colonial home in suburban Bloomfield Hills, and is active in Detroit area civic and charitable groups. He likes jazz and Big Band music, but has no hobbies. His close friends tend to come from outside the auto industry, and he has made a point of avoiding the social circles of "Mister Ford," as lacocca and other Ford executives respectfully call their ruler. lacocca once explained, "I don't want to be fired for something I said to Mister Ford over drinks at the 21 Club."

By that standard, lacocca will be officially free to buy the boss a drink after Oct. 15, the day he goes off the payroll and, not coincidentally, his 54th birthday. By allowing lacocca to stay on until then, Ford will be swelling lacocca's annual pension to more than $100,000, though the de-hired executive is hardly the retiring type. He has given "no thought to what I'm going to do at all, literally none," he says. "Education, business, government, fishing--I don't know." He would not mind being an independent Ford dealer. "Maybe there is such a thing as a new life. I've got to do a lot of thinking about it."

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