European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 08, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                If the cars Are Good and the Price is right they la sell booming profits Ihry Stef sep income. S3_q of dollars 22.4 of comr � Jujj a .iji3 be 61 i productivity Nuntz of pm Prada cd it my Kim � vat Page 14 the stars and stripes by John Holusha new York times l be a. Iacocca has become a Best Selling author and his Chrysler corp. Is making More Money on each car and truck it Sells than eve the mighty general motors corp. A company that six cars ago was Teeter into on the edae of bankruptcy and begging for Federal help has emerged As. A Small effective and feisty combatant in the increasingly competitive automobile business. Now Chrysler is again at a Crossroads of sorts and t Iacocca s reputation is again on the line. The two key things he did to save the company pare costs and create a family of cars based on the a car May not serve to keep Chrysler healthy. Already the in Ltd automobile workers Union is demanding that Chrysler give Back More of the millions of dollars in wage concessions that the workers agreed to when the company was sliding. Ii negotiations go badly the Union could strike when its contract expires on oct. 15. Meanwhile the a car family by far Chrysler s main product line is vulnerable to rising sales of Small japanese cars and to the resurgence of the american Driver s Sweet tooth for big cars. If the Markel shift they could be in  warned Harvey Heinbach an analyst with Merrill Lynch. Wall Street is watching closely to see How Well Chrysler adjusts to the changing Auto Market. Its Stock has been Selling at about $35 a share which to Little belter than three times its earnings. Pm Stock is Selling at about five times earnings and even that is considered a Low Price to earnings multiple. Iacocca seems unfazed by the doubters. He insists thai the Low Stock Price is More a reflection of the company s old death rattle Days than it is a prognosis of doom in Chrysler s future. Wall Street does t treat us like a Normal company  he said. They want one More shot in a big downturn to see How we manage it. I Tell them we re ready but the response is prove it " indeed Iacocca has larger and sportier cars in the wings and some already in production which he expects will woo a younger More affluent buyer than the current Chrysler models. He is expanding into new businesses paying $637 million to buy the Gulf Stream aerospace corp., a maker of executive aircraft. And to has his manufacturing specialists working on the Liberty project which like pm s publicity drenched Saturn project. Is an Effort to Cut $2.000 out of the Cost of a Small car by using advanced production technologies. And he remains As always the super Salesman whose television commercials helped persuade people to buy Chrysler cars when it seemed Likely that the company would fail. In fact Many say that Iacocca s flamboyant personality and tame have boosted sales of Chrysler s cars. He scoffs at the notion. If the cars Are Good and the Price is right they la sell the tall stylishly dressed executive insisted. I Don t of Hank i m Worth $100 on the Trade in. If you give a Guy an extra $50. He will buy the pm car every  still Chrysler s future remains in Iacocca s hands. The 61-year-old Chie executive has pulled Back a bit from 1 Day to Day operations even taking a month Long vacation this summer. He has moved three executives into an office of the chairman which shares decision making authority. But Bennett e. Bidwell executive Vic. President for marketing and a member of the chairman1 Ottyce has quipped Lee settles the tie votes including the 3-0  even Iacocca s severest critics concede that he has snored up Chrysler s Bottom line. The company is solidly in the Black today it earned a record $2.4 billion in i i a4 and another $ 1.104 billion in the first six months of mis year. Sales which were $ 19.6 billion last year continue to climb. But Mia Lical health has come at a Price. As part of me process of scaling Back to avoid bankruptcy Chrysler sold virtually All of its overseas operations. That eaves it confined to North America at a time when both the Ford motor co. And pm Are Well on their Way to becoming global enterprises Iacocca has established links with japanese French and korean companies but he still has less flexibility to Man Euver than his major competitors. Meanwhile japanese Auto companies have committed to building factories in the United h. Oon ? we turn out More than 1 million c a a yearly 1990 in addition to imports. Most of those cars will be Small and will compete with Chrysler s models.  k ""9 a k he has earmarked $11.5ballon to build More modern productive factories and to develop new cars. But that Money still must be earned by Selling cars. When Chrysler desperately needed Cash sunday 84