A Faster Horse Page #7

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and Lee is just selling,

selling, selling.

That's his bag, right?

He's the great persuader.

Iacocca wanted $75 million,

and Henry Ford said,

"you got $45 million.

Go with it.

That's all you're getting,

not a dime more."

The program was approved,

and people filed out

of the room.

I was out there with iacocca,

and Mr. Ford came up.

He said, "okay,

you got your god damn car.

It better work."

Does it say what color?

Maroon.

It's right there.

Oh, that one.

They are good-looking,

barnesie.

Hi, Kelly.

What do you think

of the new car?

I hope so, too.

You're definitely

the minority at this moment.

We gotta have it grow on you.

We'll see you.

No, we love your opinions.

- You like it?

- You like it?

That's about the best mustang

I've ever seen in a long time!

Good deal.

Good deal. Thanks.

Pencils are down,

and there's no more

engineering work on this car.

It's pure execution phase

from here.

It's just making sure

that we get this thing

ready to go

into the showrooms.

We're in what we call our

manufacturing launch process.

- T minus 10, 9...

- We've completed all of our development.

Ignition.

Lift off.

Lift off.

And now we're going

into production.

We're literally

building prototype vehicles

on the assembly lines

to get

the manufacturing process

up and running.

And then once we have that,

we can go back to David

and the team and say,

"we have high confidence

that you can go ahead into full

production at full line speed."

Our program manager,

prakash patel,

he's got a tough job.

He's kind of like the guy that--

he makes sure

that everyone in the band

is playing on the right note

and that everybody plays

when they're supposed to play.

The program manager to a

team like this is so important

because they're the hammer.

I call them the hammer.

They have to keep

the vehicle on time.

A lot of things

have to come together,

not only at our plant

at flat rock,

but at every single supplier

site all around the world.

Everything on that car

has kind of a DNA.

Whether it's a part that

is manufactured at the plant,

whether it is a system

that comes into the plant,

everything

for that particular car

needs to be there on that date,

that time.

It's mind-boggling how--

how they're able to do this.

At this point,

we have started the car.

We have designed the parts.

We have confirmed everything

in the virtual world,

and we said,

"this is where we are."

Every millimeter

was fought over,

every little millimeter

on the vehicle.

You can imagine we have

some very emotional discussions

about headlamps

and tail lamps and bumpers

and, you know, you name it.

You do feel the weight

on the shoulder,

but the weight

is that you have to deliver

what you said you wanted.

Hold on, if we had

this experience in s197,

why did we get them on s550?

Who told us to

give them more business?

We're not launching a vehicle

as much as we are launching

hundreds and hundreds

of supplier facilities

around the country.

We build our engines

and transmissions in-house,

but pretty much everything else

we purchase from our suppliers.

But why should I pay

tribal anything?

There's so many places where

the system could fall apart.

But why is not their fault?

If they're not delivering a quality part,

why is that not fault?

We actually go out

to our suppliers and help them.

We're only successful

if they're successful,

so we can't afford

to let them fail.

Okay, that's what I said.

So i-- that's what I said, if

they are going out of business

and if they are distressed,

let me know,

and I will figure out a way

to pay the 47,000 bucks, okay?

But at this point

in the program,

I cannot just spend

that kind of money just because.

You have to weigh it and say,

"we gotta spend the money

on this,

and we'll save it

someplace else."

Because everything that's good

isn't the cheapest.

Okay, who's next?

Brian?

What's going on is that

on the--

when the rocker moldings

are going on,

they're not getting proper

hand clearance

between the rocker molding

and the wheel.

They physically cannot reach

their hand in there

to install the push pin.

It's almost every wheel,

this is a problem.

No way, guys.

Buck 34 a car?

Customer gets nothing for it.

There's gotta be

a better solution.

This is just the worst use

of our money.

When I started

in this industry,

I would go to changes like,

"why are you guys bickering

about six cents?

Here, here's six cents."

Right?

But you multiply that by years,

by number of cars,

it makes a big deal.

Take $1.34 times

hundred thousand cars

times five years, $1,

you just spent

half a million dollars.

Okay, next.

That is the decision

you just signed off.

As a representative

of Ford motor company,

you just said, "it is okay to

spend half a million dollars."

Big difference, a dollar

versus half a million dollars.

Are you guys sure

this is a must-fix, right?

Yeah. I signed it.

Four cents more, why?

Because a longer fastener?

That's for the fastener.

We'll go sort out the money.

Don't come back

for another change, okay?

We gotta get this thing done.

To an engineer--

and I'm an engineer--

if you give an engineer

enough time, money,

it can be done.

We can put a person

on the moon.

You just need a lot of time

and a lot of money.

You know, remember,

automotive industry's

over 100 years old now.

It's not like we are doing

a lot of stuff

that hasn't been done before.

A car is a car.

At it's most basic,

an automobile is automobile.

But to come out

with a winning product,

you have to make choices,

and the team that makes

the most correct choices

at the most

opportune time wins.

I was at

the 1964 world's fair.

They had all

the various pavilions,

but the one that caught

my eye was right in the front.

It was the Ford rotunda

and outside of it

was a mustang.

Me and my brother

sat in that line

for a long time while

everybody wandered around.

It was quite

a memorable thing for me.

It just hit me.

In April of '64,

when the car came out,

the same week,

made the cover

of both time and newsweek,

so there was an energy.

This was something big

in America.

Introducing the unexpected,

the new Ford mustang.

They booked time

on all three networks

so it was completely

blasted to the world.

People swamped the dealerships.

They actually

had to call police,

the crowds were so big.

In the first 18 months,

they sold a million

of these cars.

They could not build mustang

fast enough.

Iacocca was betting his career,

but he was betting in an area

in which he had

a unique skill.

He knew the market.

He was as good as they get.

Eventually, Lee became

President of the company.

He was the king.

Lee iacocca,

president

of the Ford motor company,

was fired by Henry Ford ii,

chairman of the board.

Publicly, they said

it was a disagreement

about the company's management.

Privately, by one report,

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