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Most of all, Iacocca got busy improving the public image of Ford cars. Deciding that every automaker was producing race-ready autos, and that the three-year-old industry agreement not to race was hypocritical, Iacocca got the green light to put Ford full-speed onto the tracks. "More people watch automobile racing than baseball and football put together," says Iacocca. "When they watch and we win, it can't help but improve our reputation."
Souped-up Fords won ten consecutive major stock car races before an aroused Chrysler fielded Plymouths with hot new engines to beat Ford at last month's Daytona 500; Ford quickly modified its entries, two weeks ago regained supremacy at the Atlanta 500, and last month won the grand touring class at Sebring with a Ford-powered Cobra sports car. A Lotus racing car with a Ford engine nearly won the Indianapolis 500 last year in a demonstration of endurance and speed so impressive that this Memorial Day eight Indy racers will use Ford power. At Le Mans in June a 200-m.p.h. Ford GT, introduced in New York two weeks ago, will become the first American car to challenge the reign of the Ferraris in the grand touring class.
Rebuffing the Buffs. Ford's participation in racing not only has generated a new esprit de corps within the division, but has caused great stirrings among the potential customers who most fascinate Iacocca: the young Iacocca is one of the leading authorities on the youth market, was the first man in the auto industry to recognize its importance and capitalize on it. Ford sponsors "hootenanny" folk sings on college campuses (although Henry Ford doesn't think much of "that awful stuff"), advertises widely in hot-rod and teenage magazines, has a panel of airline hostesses who advise on what young women like to see in cars—besides young men.
Detroit once boasted that it geared its styling to the taste dictates of women, but since Iacocca came along, it is the young people who most influence styling—at least at Ford. Iacocca points out that by 1970, the 15-to-24 age group in the U.S. will increase by 40%, calls it "the buyingest age group in history." Moreover, he feels that by designing Fords for youth appeal, he is actually making the broadest mass appeal possible, since the cult of youth in the U.S. is so strong that men and women of all ages will associate with whatever has a youthful connotation.