Autos: The Thinker (Detroit Style)

By Detroit’s favorite yardstick —sales — the Ford Mustang is the most successful car ever introduced. And the men who were responsible for it are being suitably rewarded. Lee Iacocca, the Ford division general manager who introduced the Mustang (TIME cover, April 17, 1964), is now corporate vice president responsible for all Ford Motor Co. production and sales. Donald N. Frey (pronounced Fry), Iacocca’s assistant general manager and chief engineer, the man who actually designed the Mustang, succeeded his boss two years ago as Ford division general manager. Last week Frey, 44, moved even higher. He was promoted to the brand-new post of corporate vice president of North American vehicle product development. Frey is Detroit’s sharpest idea man. Besides the Mustang, he is responsible for such innovations as the four-door Thunderbird, the stereo dashboard tape deck, and the station-wagon door that opens out as well as down. He is one of the few auto executives with experience in all three of the industry’s essential areas: design, manufacture and sales. In his new job, which covers operations in all Ford divisions, he will take on such “think” assignments as building reliability into cars, cutting costs, and meshing the work of various divisions so that they will not duplicate one another’s efforts. He will also be responsible for advanced planning—which involves everything from safety to anti-air-pollution devices, including electric autos.

A onetime metallurgy professor at the University of Michigan, Frey joined Ford in 1951 to get practical experience. He speaks Russian and French, likes opera, follows archaeology as a hobby, and reads the London Times Literary Supplement as avidly as Ward’s Automotive Reports. So professorially engrossed is he in his work that when Boss Henry Ford II tapped him for his new job, Frey forgot to ask whether it meant a pay raise. So far, it hasn’t.