Once Upon a Car is the brilliantly reported inside-the-boardrooms-and-factories story of Detroit’s fight for survival, going beyond the headlines to chronicle how the country’s Big Three auto companies—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—teetered on the brink of collapse during the 2008 financial crisis. In a tale that reads like a corporate thriller, Bill Vlasic, who has covered the auto industry for more than fifteen years, first for the Detroit News and now for the New York Times, takes readers into the executive offices, assembly plants, and union halls to introduce a cast of memorable characters, many of whom are speaking out for the first time, including the executives who struggled to save their companies but in the end had to seek a controversial, last-gasp rescue from the U.S. government.

Vlasic goes behind the scenes to portray the men at the top during Detroit’s last stand. Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, tried to turn around a dying company, only to be forced to resign as a condition of the government bailout. Bill Ford, great-grandson of the legendary Henry Ford, had the will to keep Ford alive but needed the guts to hire an unknown outsider, Alan Mulally, to transform the company before it crashed. At Chrysler, leadership was constantly changing as new owners tried in vain to fix the smallest of the beleaguered Big Three. And through it all, the president of the United Auto Workers union, Ron Gettelfinger, fought to save the jobs of the men and women who build American-made cars and trucks.

This tale of an iconic industry in crisis is more than a big business drama and provides a rich, unvarnished portrait of how Detroit’s decline affected tens of thousands of workers and dozens of communities nationwide. The story moves from the gleaming corporate skyscrapers and massive auto plants to the halls of the U.S. Congress and into the Oval Office, where President Obama and his aides wrestled with how to keep General Motors and Chrysler from going out of business. Vlasic shows why the bailout worked, and how Detroit can succeed under new leadership and build automobiles equal to any in the world.

Once Upon a Car tells a uniquely American tale of success, failure, and redemption. It is an important and illuminating chapter in an astonishing story that is still unfolding. And no one is more qualified to write it than Bill Vlasic.

Amazon Exclusive Essay: Bill Vlasic on the Men who Battled for the American Auto Industry

Bill Ford: The great-grandson of Henry Ford realized he had to give up his job as chief executive in order to save the company. He confided to aides: “I’m not the best person to operate this place,” he said. “I want to get somebody who can do it right.”

Alan Mulally: The former Boeing executive’s fresh approach turned the company around and kept it from begging for a government bailout. “These three companies have been slowly going out of business for eighty years,” he said. “And their arrogance caught up with them.”

Rick Wagoner and Bob Lutz: They were convinced G.M. was on the right track, until the 2008 recession. Wagoner, G.M.’s chairman and CEO, lost his job after leading the Big Three to Washington for emergency assistance. “The moral of the story,” he said, “is never put yourself in a position where you have to go down there.” Lutz said, “Those people down there hate us.”

Kirk Kerkorian and Jerry York: The Las Vegas billionaire and his aggressive advisor tried to grab General Motors, but failed. “Wagoner has never accomplished anything,” said Kerkorian. York urged him to buy Ford shares – and ride Mulally’s turnaround plan. “It’s pretty damn clear to me that Ford has a huge sense of urgency compared to G.M.,” he said.

Steve Feinberg: The intense chairman of Cerberus Capital Management believed his private-equity company could turn Chrysler into a moneymaker, and so he bought the smallest of the Big Three carmakers from Daimler Benz. “What could be a better opportunity than an orphan in an industry that’s at the bottom?”

Sergio Marchionne: The crafty head of Fiat offered the Obama administration an alternative to letting Chrysler go broke which would liquidate tens of thousands of jobs. Marchionne knew Detroit was facing its reckoning in 2008. “I can smell the fear in this town,” he said. “I can feel it, the feeling of impending doom.”

The fascinating story of a century-old automobile dynasty

Fiat is one of the world's largest automakers,  but when it made headlines by grabbing control of a bankrupt Chrysler in 2009 it was unknown in the U.S. Fiat’s against-all-odds swoop on Chrysler---masterminded by Sergio Marchionne, the Houdini-like manager who saved Fiat from its own near-collapse in 2005 – has made the automaker one of the most unlikely winners of the financial crisis. Mondo Agnelli is a new book that looks at the chain of unpredictable events triggered by the death of Gianni Agnelli in 2003. Gianni, the charismatic, silver-haired power broker and style icon, was the patriarch who had lead the company founded by his grandfather in 1899. But Gianni's own son had committed suicide. Without a mature heir, the dynasty and Fiat were rudderless. Backed by Gianni's closest advisors, his serious, shy, and determined grandson John plucked Marchionne from obscurity. Together, they saved the family company and, inadvertently, positioned Fiat as a global trailblazer when the global storm hit.

• A classic story of ingenuity and hard work, the book portrays a business dynasty that triumphed over adversity and family tragedy because of its own smarts, sweat, and ability to bend the rules
• A an engaging tale for those interested in the stories behind the economic crash, the book contains never-before reported material about how Fiat succeeded in making Chrysler profitable where both Daimler AG and Cerberus, its previous owners, had failed.

A story for a wide audience, from car buffs, business readers, lovers of Italy, and anyone fascinated by the lifestyle of Europe's most glamorous industrial dynasty, this book tells the tale of how Fiat achieved the seemingly impossible -- turning around an American automotive icon everyone else had given up for dead.

Author Jennifer Clark

Inside this manual you will find routine maintenance, tune-up procedures, engine repair, cooling and heating, air conditioning, fuel and exhaust, emissions control, ignition, brakes, suspension and steering, electrical systems, and wiring diagrams.

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