Interview with Burton Bouwkamp, Chrysler Corporation
Burton Bouwkamp was Manager of Dodge Product Planning from 1964 to 1968, Director of Chrysler Corporation Product Planning from 1968 to 1975, the product leader of Chrysler Europe from 1975 to 1979, Director of Body Engineering from 1979 to 1983, and a member of Mitsubishi's Board from 1983 to 1987. He is currently in retirement, but has been instrumental in arranging for Allpar to get more information on a number of generally neglected vehicles from the people who engineered them.
Can you recall the most notable people you worked with at Dodge? What were they like to work with?
Two people - Byron Nichols, VP and General Manager of Dodge and Bob McCurry. General Sales Manager. Byron was capable and personable and well liked and respected by employees. He had long sales experience in the auto field and one of his greatest skills was in handling people both above and below him. Bob McCurry was capable but completely different. He was gruff, direct and demanding - but fair. The people working for him called him "Captain Crunch" - and most of them were scared of him.
Can you tell me any of Byron Nichols' accomplishments?
No. I don't know much about Byron's history except that he was Ford's area sales manager in Atlanta when he came to Chrysler. He was smooth, polished, personable, experienced.
Do you have any impressions of Newberg, Iaccoca, Bill Brownlie, or Riccardo?
Newberg was like Iacocca, "my way or the highway."
Iacocca was a capable dictator who provided good direction to his subordinates but was only interested in their opinions when he asked for them.
Riccardo was an intelligent concientious leader who lost day-to-day communication with his subordinates because of his fiery temper. (One time I made a product proposal that cost money and John stopped my presentation and said, "anyone that would make a stupid G--- d---- proposal like that is not qualified to be Director of Product Planning of this corporation." That was the end of the proposal to make the 360 cu. in. engine standard equipment in the Fury III and Sport Fury.)
Bill was a great designer of sporty cars. He resisted working with our sedan and station wagon headroom, seat height, and rear leg room dimensional specifications. Bill usually tried to get us to reduce headroom and rear seat leg room so he had more design freedom for the roof line. I worked well with Bill but we “tangled” sometimes - usually over interior dimensions.
Mitsubishi
When Chrysler chose to work with Mitsubishi, why did they chose Mitsubishi over, say, Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Mazda, Nissan, etc.?
Both Mitsubishi and Chrysler were looking for partners and found each other. Lynn Townsend (Chrysler VP of International and later President) wanted Chrysler to be a world wide company and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) wanted someone to teach its automotive subsidiary, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC), how to make money in the car business. MMC was a wholly owned subsidiary of MHI and had seldom - if ever - returned a profit to the parent company.
Chrysler became a world wide company by buying part of MMC and all of Rootes (UK), Simca (France) and Barrieros (Spain). All four companies were weak financially, which became a large additional burden for Chrysler, which was already struggling to maintain sales penetration in its home market.
Was there any Australian connection with Mitsubishi (given that they had purchased the plant) in your normal workings?
No. Chrysler Australia became a subsidiary company of MMC and after the transition period, Chrysler was not involved.
Was there any Chrysler engineering involvement in the DSM and various Japanese-made Mitsubishi imports?
Chrysler was involved in the styling of the products built for Chrysler at Diamond Star Motors but we were not involved in either product engineering or manufacturing engineering of the products.
What did you end up teaching MMC?
Not much. We helped them with styling of cars for the American market and we showed them the mini-van design and the club cab pickup design. Aside from that I can't remember anything that we gave/taught them.
Styling and Product Planning had ongoing relationships but there was very little day-to-day contact between MMC Engineering and Chrysler Engineering. For years we tried to get MMC to change to a conventional East-West FWD configuration from a West-East FWD configuration but they never agreed. Consequently we could never share power trains (engine/transmission) in FWD vehicles.
Were there any plans for a reverse flow of engineering or vehicles or components back to Mitsu?
MMC and Chrysler Styling Departments worked together on a number of products but the Engineering Departments did not work together.
Did Chrysler work with their production people at all?
Unfortunately "no" - but they should have - because MMC manufacturing quality was much better than Chrysler. We could have learned a lot from MMC. In 1977 I led a trip of twelve MMC manufacturing engineers to tour the Belvedere Assembly Plant. We were there three days. They told me that the sheet metal and the body fits that they observed at Belvedere were not good enough for an MMC product.
When the four-speed automatics were developed, do you know if anyone considered licensing the existing MMC design?
No
What was it like to work with Mitsu?
My office was across the street from MMC and I was on their Board of Directors. I saw MMC personnel nearly every day and our relations were very good but I never felt that I really knew what was going on. For example, I had no real visibility of their product costs - neither tooling cost or part cost. I was an observer and the picture was fuzzy.
MMC personnel were always very polite to me - and responsive although I did not get the level of detail that I wanted. Language was obviously part of the problem. Another part was cultural - Japanese are taught to only answer the question asked and not to volunteer information broader than the specific question.
Chrysler Europe
What happened to Barrieros - was it sold to Peugeot?
I don't know. I think Peugeot bought Barrieros with the rest of Chrysler Europe and I assume that they sold it but I don't know to who.
I understand that Chrysler did minimal "Americanization" of European imports before the Horizon; after the Horizon was a success, why did they switch to Mitsubishi? How did the company choose what to bring over?
The "plan" was to sell MMC products through Dodge dealers and sell European products (Rootes and Simca) through Plymouth dealers. Also, to sell the cars as engineered for Europe with modifications only for USA emissions, safety and marketing requirements; i. e. air conditioning. The European products turned out to be unsatisfactory for the US market and were replaced with MMC cars. The main problems were Rootes quality and reliability and Simca style and lack of an automatic transmission. Consequently, European products were dropped in the USA and MMC products were sold through both Plymouth and Dodge dealers.
That might have worked, but in the late 1970s MMC was concerned that Chrysler was going out of the automobile business so they negotiated the rights to set up their own distribution system in the USA. That put Plymouth, Dodge and MMC dealers in competition selling the same products. That meant that business partners - who were never very friendly - became unfriendly competitors. In my opinion this was the first step down a path which led to a Chrysler - MMC divorce.
The Horizon/Omni was seen as being a step above the Dodge Colt - bigger in overall size with a bigger (2.2 litre) engine. In my opinion, there were opportunities for both vehicles in the market place. The Horizon was discontinued in 1989 because the design was 12 years old and Chrysler management decided that they did not need to spend the financial and technical resources to stay in that (low profit) market segment.
Did the purchase of Rootes hasten Chrysler's financial problems?
Yes. We borrowed money from the British Goverment to stay in business in the UK. But funds for Chrysler France and Chrysler Spain came from either Chrysler Europe or Chrysler USA.
Were there plans to boost Rootes reliability to American levels?
Yes. Example. The first Cricket/Avenger plastic instrument panel pads cracked in Minnesota and warped/shrunk in Arizona. We fixed this problem with USA material specifications but we didn't move fast enough and the Cricket was withdrawn from the American market because of many other quality and reliability problems.
What was the relationship of Chrysler International in comparison to Chrysler France or Chrysler South Africa, Chrysler Australia, etc?
All of these companies were subsidiary companies to C.I.S.A. (Chrysler International S.A.). C.I.S.A. was headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. I was a C.I.S.A. Vice President when I was Managing Director of Chrysler Japan (1983-1987).
What kind of technological interchange went on with Chrysler Europe to and from the US? I'm aware of the electronic ignition and the trip computer from Huntsville.
There was very good technical interchange because our European styling and engineering departments were all run by Chrysler executives - Chrysler Europe examples are me, Joe Farnham (Technical Director of Chrysler France), Dave Logan (Director of Body Engineering for Chrysler France) and Art Blakesleee (Director of Chrysler Europe Styling). When Chrysler USA and Chrysler Europe jointly did the C2 (Horizon/Omni) the technical interchange got even better although we did choose to go our separate directions in a number of product areas for product cost reasons. While I was European Director of Product Development in 1975 I arranged for Roy Axe (Director of Chrysler Europe Styling) to be transferred to Highland Park to become Director of the Chrysler USA Design Office.
Other questions
What was the reaction to the Charger III and Daroo Dart?
I don't remember the reaction although I attended the Los Angeles press conference and auto show when the Charger III was unveiled. I don't even remember the Daroo Dart.
What was the rationale behind the name change from Dart to Aspen?
First: To communicate an all new car to the customer.
Second: To try to appeal to younger buyers (the median age of Dart buyers was over 50 years old.)
Can you say anything about the Aspen introduction and the decisions that led to what many have called a far-too-early introduction?
I have no impression of either the Aspen intro or the "far to early" comment. In general in those days we did not do a good job of launching a new model.
When the company eliminated its C bodies, why did they transfer some of the names onto B-bodies, eliminating the B-body names, instead of eliminating the C-body names?
Fury was judged to be a better product name than Belvedere or Satellite.
Can you describe how the cars were named?
Product Planning and Sales Management decided on car names. Sometimes the choices were backed up by market research but frequently they were not. Sometimes the new name was a problem. The Dodge Demon (Dodge version of the Plymouth) was named by the Dodge sales department because they envisioned an ad that said “Come in for a Demon-stration.” The Demon name didn’t last one year because some religious groups formally objected to the Demon name. I forgot what we renamed this model.
Why do you think the Dusters sold so well compared with the Swingers and Darts?
Price and style. Also, the Dodge nameplate appealed to older owners. Until the Charger, Dodge had an owner body with a median age of over 50 years old. (In 1965 we brought out a new expensive Dodge line called “Monaco.” I did not put the Dodge nameplate on the car because I said “Dodge is a truck - Monaco is a car.” That only lasted part of the model year - when Lynn Townsend noticed that “Dodge” was not on the car - front and rear!)
Were any cars/trucks produced in the Middle East, such as Israel, Iran, Egypt, etc.?
No. Chrysler UK did supply the Hillman Arrow power train (1725 cc) to Iran National for building into the Iran "Paykan" (Iranian for "Arrow") automobile. They built the Hillman Arrow body in Tehran and assembled almost 100,000 vehicles a year. Chrysler provided technical assistance to Iran National in building the assembly plant and paint shop and we also had people stationed in Iran to provide assistance in building the vehicles. Chrysler people left the country when the Shah was overthrown in 1979. The Hyami brothers, who owned Iran National, left Iran just in the nick of time. The last I heard was that they became a Mercedes dealer in Irwin, California.
Did you deal at all with the various joint ventures such as local Turkish manufacture of Fargo trucks, etc?
I did not. We had a man (John Hummon) stationed in Turkey but I don't know what he did. John's still alive and I have his address so we can pursue that if you want to.
What would you say your greatest contributions to Chrysler were?
Five things:
a. In charge of planning, styling, and engineering the European Chrysler Horizon which won European Car of the Year in 1978.
b. Leading the team that planned the 1966 and 1968 Dodge Charger.
c. Leading the small team that planned, prepared, arranged, and supervised the 1960 Chrysler 300F speed and acceleration runs on the beach at Daytona. We entered six 300Fs and they finished in positions #1 through #6 and set a two way speed record of 144.9 MPH. Here's the headline in the next morning's Daytona Beach paper.
(The slowest 300F at 142.5 MPH beat the old record of 139.4 MPH set by Tim Flock in a Carl Kiekhaefer prepared Chrysler 300B in 1956.)
d. Leading the Chrysler team that worked with MMC and MHI to increase Chrysler's equity in MMC from 15% to 24%.
e. Leading the Chrysler team that worked with MMC to show that joint venture manufacture of MMC vehicles in the USA was feasible.
What do you remember about the 1963 models? (From later correspondence)
Bill Newberg (President) told Styling and Engineering to design the all new 1962 Plymouths and Dodges smaller because Chevrolet was making their car smaller. It turned out that the smaller Chevrolet that Bill heard about at Bloomfield Hills Country Club was the "Chevelle" - an intermediate sized product addition to the Chevrolet line - not a replacement. We ended up with non competitive Plymouth and Dodge products in 1962 -3 -4.
2. Cliff Voss designed the 1963 Chrysler. A great design on too narrow a rear track because we couldn't get the management to spend the money for a new rear axle housing. Also, we did not put enough money in appointments - I cringe when I think/see the stamped grille that we put in the 1963 Chrysler Newport. (I was the product planning manager on the Chrysler carline at that time.)
3. I can't even remember what the 1963 Imperial looked like. Marc Prass was the product planning manager on the Imperial. I think it may have still been a frame and body car. (Chrysler went unit construction body in 1960.)
Chrysler Marine
Burton wrote:
My favorite Bob McCurry story happened when Bob was promoted from Dodge General Sales Manger to be head of the Chrysler Marine Division. We called it the “boat division.” It was failing so Lynn Townsend (President) sent Bob in to rescue it.
At one of the first Dodge staff meetings after Bob left on his new assignment, Joe Knauss (Dodge's Business Management Manager) complained to Byron Nichols (Dodge VP and General Manager) that McCurry was signing up Dodge dealers as Chrysler boat dealers. Byron's answer was that Lynn Townsend had given Bob a tough assignment and he wasn't going to get in Bob's way - so he was not going to complain about boats being sold out of Dodge showrooms.
Two to three years later Bob returned to the Dodge Division succeeding Byron Nichols as VP and General Manger. At Bob's first staff meeting he told Joe Knauss (still there in the same job) to “get the blankety-blank boats out of the car showrooms!”
I was at both of these meetings.
K-Car Convertibles
Burton Bouwkamp wrote the following to Hemmings Motor News (reprinted by permission of Mr. Bouwkamp):
I was Director of Body Engineering from 1979 to 1984 when we did the "K" car. The "K" car convertible and the "woody" Chrysler T and C convertible were Lee Iacocca's idea. He was a capable automotive executive and a great leader - but impatient! After he saw the "woody" convertible he wanted it NOW! More on that later.
First - the cast of characters in the early 1980s:
Lee Iacocca - CEO. Needs no introduction. Referred to as LAI.
Hal Sperlich - President. An imaginative and talented product man. He came to Chrysler one year before Lee and was my boss when I was in charge of Chrysler's European Product Planning, European Styling (called "Design" now) and Chrysler's Engineering Offices in England, France and Spain..
Hank Carlini - LAI's special assignment man on product. Lee brought Hank to Chrysler from Ford - along with more than 25 others - such as Jerry Greenwald, Steve Miller, Paul Bergmoser, Dave Platt, Don DeLaRosa, etc.
Don DeLaRosa - VP of Design (Styling)
Dave Platt - VP of Purchasing
Dick Leacia - President of Creative Industries
Dick Rossio - Executive Engineer for Body Electrical
Hank Carlini arranged for Creative Industries to make a prototype "woody" "K" car convertible by reworking Chrysler station wagon wood trim parts. I don't know if this was Lee's idea or Hank's but Lee liked it and wanted it when he saw it.
Lee told Hal Sperlich to put it into production. Hal asked me what it would take. I don't remember the exact numbers but I determined that it would take more than $200,000 for tools (injection molding dies and assembly fixtures) and more than one year to design and tool the unique convertible parts.
Hal said my answer was unacceptable because Lee wants it NOW! Hal directed me to build production cars the same way that Creative Industries built the prototype. I said that was impractical because it would cost more than $1,000 per car. Hal said that Lee didn't ask how much it would cost - he said "do it."
So, I asked Dick Leacia if he could rework and add station wagon moldings to "K" car convertibles on a production line at Creative Industries similar to the way he created the prototype T&C convertible. Dick said he could and he would start as soon as he cleared the necessary floor space and hired and trained the people to do it - but he said it would be expensive. I had a clear understanding of Lee's "I WANT IT NOW" message and although it was not in my area of responsibility I told Dick Leacia to "go." The cost for this approach for adding the wood trim turned out to be around $1,100 per car.
Styling was not happy with the esthetic compromises that were necessary to adapt the station wagon moldings to the convertible but they decided not to object to LAI - who had already approved the appearance. (You can see these compromises if you take a critical look at the body side moldings from a 3/4 front or 3/4 rear view of the car.)
Purchasing was unhappy because they wanted to send the job out for competitive bidding to several companies like Cars and Concepts, American Sun Roof, etc. However, Dave Platt decided not to approach LAI and be responsible for delaying the program so he approved Creative Industries as a source and accepted their quote.
So it was full speed ahead - and it was a successful program because we recovered the $1,100 cost in pricing and we sold additional cars because of the addition of the Town and Country convertible model. I don't recall the build volume but it was more than 1,000 the first year.
In my opinion, the previous "bean counter" Chrysler management would never have approved this program. The cost would have scared them. Lee had the instinct to know that it was the right thing to do. Lee is also responsible for the first "K" car convertible model even though his Sales and Product Planning management did not want it. When Engineering (my department) did not have the wherewithal to engineer the "K" car convertible Lee and Hal had it done at Cars and Concepts by converting 2 door sedan models. "K" car convertible sales were so successful that Cars and Concept could not keep up with demand so we (my department) redesigned it for Chrysler to bring production in-house to the St. Louis Plant. In the redesign we added a glass backlight, added quarter windows and additional structure in the floor pan.
The Town and Country convertible had the an Electronic Voice Alert (EVA) feature but the feature was not developed for this specific model. It was made a standard T and C convertible feature to help justify the price we had to charge to recover Creative Industries conversion costs.
The EVA feature was developed by my Body Electrical department and Chrysler's Huntsville, Alabama space engineers to demonstrate and publicize Chrysler's electronic capability.
The EVA feature resulted in a memorable family incident. I took an engineering car with a prototype voice alert system one weekend. During the weekend I demonstrated it to all my friends near our cottage and also to my son Bob's family in Lakeview, Michigan - a village about 40 miles north of Grand Rapids.
On Monday my son Bob called me and said that his 6 year old son, Andrew, was expelled from school for fighting. I asked, "what happened?" Bob said that Andrew told his schoolmates that his Grandpa brought a talking car to Lakeview this weekend. An argument ensued along the line:
He did not!
He did too!
You're a liar!
Those were fighting words - and both boys ended up being expelled from school.
Another result of this weekend evaluation is that on Monday I told Dick Rossio (Executive Engineer of Body Electrical) that the voice alert was getting on my wife's and my nerves and I asked him how to turn it off. Dick said there was no way to cut a wire without making the car illegal for some of the Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. I told Dick to find a way. Consequently, after the first 10,000 cars were built with the EVA feature, wiring changes were made and a switch was added behind (forward of) the glove box so an agile owner - or a dealer mechanic - could turn it off.
Other contributions by Burton Bouwkamp:
Creation and history of the Dodge Charger
Upcoming or Popular Dodges, Chryslers, and Jeeps
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