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 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 that 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. Lanquage 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.
As I understand it, Chrysler did minimal "Americanization" of the European imports before the Horizon; after the Horizon was a success, why did they switch to Mitsubishi? And how did the company choose what Mitsubishis vs Simcas/Rootes 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 Duster) 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. See attachment. (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.
