Chrysler's Lee Iacocca to Have His Pension and Car Taken Away

Once rumored as the czar of the US auto industry, the man who put Chrysler back on its feet in the 1980s is likely to lose a large amount of his pension and the guaranteed life-long company car following the company's recent bankruptcy filing.

Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli was quoted by msnbc.com as telling a U.S. bankruptcy court on Thursday that Lee Iacocca's pension would be among the obligations Chrysler will no longer have to pay if it gets bankruptcy court approval to sell itself to a “New Chrysler” to be owned by its union, the U.S. and Canadian governments and Fiat SpA.

Apparently, Mr. Iacocca participated in a supplemental executive retirement plan that was comprised of non-IRS qualified pension funds and is now subject to bankruptcy.

As the aforementioned source writes, the claim is unsecured and though it would be paid after secured creditors in a bankruptcy, the current situation might not allow this.

On top of that, Chrysler informed its former executives that as a result of the April 30 bankruptcy filing it will pull the plug on the program that supplied them with cars. The letter sent to the execs asked for the return of the cars or for an arrangement to pay for them.

Lee Iacocca served as President and CEO from 1978 and as chairman from 1979 until 1992. Ranking 18th in Portfolio's greatest CEOs of all times, the famous leader managed to get the support of the US government and thus obtained a much-needed loan to bailout Chrysler in 1979.