By DANNY HAKIM
Published: July 19, 2005
DETROIT, July 18 - Lee A. Iacocca is back and still shooting from the hip.

After remaining silent during Detroit's recent doldrums, Mr. Iacocca, the 80-year-old former Chrysler chairman, is talking about cars again and even promoting Chrysler's cars in three new commercials. In an interview on Monday, the man who once pulled Chrysler from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1980's offered his views on the domestic industry and its weakest giant, General Motors.

Among other things, he said Detroit's automakers need to move faster on hybrid electric cars. G.M., he added, should have invested in hybrids instead of buying the Hummer brand. G.M.'s eight domestic brands are too many to manage effectively, he said, and Robert A. Lutz, G.M.'s vice chairman and product development chief, has not made enough progress revitalizing the company's cars and trucks in his nearly four-year tenure. Mr. Lutz, 73, was Chrysler's president while Mr. Iacocca was chairman, and the two had a contentious relationship.

Lee A. Iacocca at his home on Monday in Bel Air, Calif. He's been hired to help sell a Chrysler discount deal.

But Mr. Iacocca said G.M.'s biggest problem is its health care costs, which, at an estimated $1,500 per vehicle in the United States, exceed the cost of steel.

"They're fighting for their lives because they have to get their health care costs under control," he said. "When I heard the union guys said, 'Well, we're not going to open the contract, we don't think they're that bad off so we'll wait till 2007,' you better hope there's a company left."

G.M. is pushing the United Auto Workers union to agree to major concessions on health care benefits this summer; the union has said it will only work within its contract, which does not expire until September 2007.

As for his former company, Mr. Iacocca says he believes Chrysler's popular 300 sedan is a good blueprint for what Detroit should be doing - making cars that stand out from models that look ready-made for Avis or Hertz lots. While he is not completely enamored of the new Ford Mustang - Mr. Iacocca championed the original in his days as a top Ford executive - he said it did succeed in making a strong statement.

"Chrysler hit its stride and is doing some great work," he said. "I think Ford has some more to do, beyond Mustang. But G.M., I'm trying to think what they would do for a new Pontiac or Buick. For me, honestly, they fade into the landscape."

"Lutz has had enough time there," he said, adding, "What do they have that turns your head when it goes down the street?"

In response, Thomas J. Kowaleski, a spokesman for G.M., said: "The only thing I would say is we have a course that's charted and we are well on that course. We'll see whether he's right or we're right."

Mr. Kowaleski also said that G.M. has been investing in hybrids, pointing to its deal to jointly develop hybrids with DaimlerChrysler.

In the last three years, Mr. Iacocca has said little as domestic automakers have struggled. Though Chrysler has shown the most tangible signs of success, it faces many of the same fundamental challenges as G.M. and Ford. Chrysler turned to Mr. Iacocca because it, along with Ford, is following G.M.'s lead in offering the public the same discount that employees get on most 2005 models.

"No matter what we did, we'd be second or third and we knew we'd get lost out there," said Jason Vines, a Chrysler spokesman. "So, we said, 'What is the big idea that cuts through immediately and gets people talking about Chrysler products?' "

The big idea was bringing back the star of more than 60 Chrysler commercials and one of the original celebrity chief executives. Mr. Vines said Mr. Iacocca would be paid more than $1 million for the deal, or more than $1 per vehicle sold in the second half of the year, though aspects of the deal were still being worked out. All the proceeds will go to finance clinical trials of a new approach to combating diabetes that are being run at Massachusetts General Hospital. Mr. Iacocca's effort to combat diabetes, www.joinleenow.org, is his main occupation now and started after the death in 1983 of his wife of 26 years, Mary, from complications related to diabetes.

Mr. Iacocca, some of whose previous commercials used appeals to patriotism, conceded that it was "maybe a little ironic" to be promoting cars for a company that is now a division of a German automaker, DaimlerChrysler. But he said it would have been more unpalatable to him to work for the Japanese automakers that were the main competitive threat to Detroit.

"You know, I was once asked to do some work for Nissan," he said. "That I couldn't do, that I couldn't stomach. I can't go Japanese no matter what you paid me."

But he did cite Toyota as the company whose focus has helped it succeed.

"You know, I went out on buying sprees," he said. "Ford went out and bought everything that wasn't nailed down for a while. And then G.M. reacted, they buy Saab, Ford gets Volvo. When I think about it, I look at Toyota. Toyota has a worldwide name. There's a Toyota and a Lexus and that's about it, two entities."

Toyota did recently add a third brand, Scion, aimed at young buyers. In the United States, G.M. sells Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Saab, Hummer, Saturn and GMC vehicles - "they all trip over each other," Mr. Iacocca said.

Mr. Iacocca also said American automakers need to go aggressively after the hybrid market. Addressing complaints that some hybrid drivers get less fuel savings than they expect, Mr. Iacocca said: "If it delivers on half the promise, do it. Because you can't let Toyota rule the roost here continually.

"I don't see anything on the horizon short term that can improve fuel economy any faster than a hybrid."

As for G.M.'s Hummer brand, which it acquired in 1999, he said: "Hummer, I can't understand. Even though it won't make or break G.M., why would you spend so much money on a nameplate that probably can't go anyplace?"

Mr. Iacocca's deal with Chrysler appears to have mended his fences with the company, which were strained after he took part in a failed bid in the mid-1990's by the billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian to take over the company. Earlier this year, Mr. Kerkorian revealed he was building a substantial position in G.M.

Mr. Iacocca said he saw Mr. Kerkorian, 88, at a social event before the announcement.

"He said, 'I don't know, what do you think of G.M.?' I didn't think much when he asked me. Never said he bought in," Mr. Iacocca recalled. "When I read it in the papers, it stunned the hell out of me."

As for his former company, Mr. Iacocca says he believes Chrysler's popular 300 sedan is a good blueprint for what Detroit should be doing - making cars that stand out from models that look ready-made for Avis or Hertz lots.