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"If you are interested in automotive excitement and intrigue this makes for an enjoyable read." - Lee Iacocca

"This is the story of a half-dozen extraordinary men who-against all odds-transformed the seemingly immutable automotive world.... The automotive industry had become a mature, entrenched business with the fundamental technology and basic vehicle concepts well established. Not only was it harder to change, but the risks of failure were greater than ever before. In this environment it took a new kind of genius to effect fundamental change."

"So how did Henry Ford II, Soichiro Honda, Lee Iacocca, Eberhard von Kuenheim, Robert Lutz, and Ferdinand Piech cast such long shadows? With brains, bravery, charisma, luck, vision, a gift of prophecy, and an inspired choice of colleagues. Add one more important ingredient for success: giant egos."

"In retrospect, all six men were too human and all too capable of making big mistakes. But they had breathed life into an industry that in many ways had grown stale."

-from Six Men Who Built the Modern Auto Industry

Based on extensive research and candid interviews, author Richard Johnson examines the relationships between these unique men and how they came to wield so much influence across the global automotive industry-relating, in their own words, how these often cantankerous visionaries viewed the future, from their boardrooms and after retirement.

Johnson's interviews elicit these previously untold stories:

• Ferdinand Piech's defence against widespread criticism about the current state of the Volkswagen Group, in the only interview he has granted since his retirement.
• Lee Iacocca's criticism of Bob Eaton, the man he recruited to replace himself as the head of Chrysler-shedding new light on why Bob Lutz was not made his successor.
• Bob Lutz's fresh details on Chrysler's famous early-1990s comeback and his own
• comeback at General Motors.

Henry Ford II-visionary autocrat and the grandson of the founder of Ford Motor Company. Soichiro Honda-founder of Honda, who revolutionized Japanese automaking. Lee Iacocca-father of the Mustang and saviour of Chrysler. Eberhard von Kuenheim-founder of the modern BMW. Bob Lutz-a driving force at Chrysler, GM, and BMW. Ferdinand Piech-architect of the Volkswagen Group.

The lives and careers of these six men were profoundly intermingled; they competed and collaborated, even hired and fired one another. They sometimes engaged in bitter personal feuds, yet could also inspire each other and work side by side to achieve great victories.

Six Men Who Built the Modern Auto Industry tells their stories in their own words, showing how their fresh approaches to design, engineering, manufacturing, and sales and marketing reshaped their respective car companies and, in turn, had significant impact on the societies in which they lived.

Richard A. Johnson is Managing Editor of Automotive News, the world's leading auto industry newspaper, where he has held senior editing and reporting positions since 1984. He has served as the newspaper's European Editor and Asia Editor, and was the founding editor of London-based Automotive News Europe in 1995. He also founded the European. Automotive Hall of Fame. Johnson is the author of American Fads. He lives in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

Code No. 011674, ISBN 0760319588