The Critical Path: Inventing an Automobile and Reinventing a Corporation [Hardcover]

Brock W. Yates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 1996

The story of how Chrysler's minivan team created an automobile that captured the 1995 Motor Trend Car of the Year and other major awards - and reinvented a perilously entrenched corporation in the process - is as dramatic and inspiring a story as any in business today. Brock Yates, one of the most respected writers in the auto world, was given unprecedented access to Chrysler - every planning session, presentation, budget review, test drive, assembly line start-up, and marketing launch. The result is a book that unveils the mysteries of modern car-making, revealing how cars are shaped through countless interlinked decisions ranging from size and power to door configurations, color selections, and innumerable other interconnected details. It also captures the complex process by which the thousands of separate pieces that make up a car are designed, tested, manufactured, and marshaled into place at the exact moment they are needed. For any reader who cares about cars, this is the most intriguing look inside the mysteries of their creation ever written. At the same time, The Critical Path recounts an extraordinary drama of all-too-human managers attempting to make something new, in a new way, inside a corporate culture that resists them at every turn. The story of how Chrysler's minivan platform team kept their commitment to quality, schedule, and budget - with a $3 billion investment and the company's fate palpably in the balance - is as encouraging a tale as has emerged from American business in years. The unprecedented triumph and Chrysler's resultant comeback is a lesson in successful management that will be savored by any reader interested in how great companies make breakthroughproducts.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After a series of unsatisfactory models that pushed the company to the brink of extinction, the Chrysler Corporation did a revolutionary thing: It listened to its customers. What they told the company was that they wanted a family vehicle that didn't drive like an 18-wheeler. Chrysler responded with its minivans, introducing a new category of vehicles to the American public and resuscitating its floundering finances. Brock Yates, a columnist for Car & Driver magazine, reconstructs this tale with a mix of knowledge about vehicle engineering, the automobile industry, and the American public. A must-read for those in the industry and others interested in corporate survival.

From Publishers Weekly

A bolt-by-bolt account of the five-year gestation of Chrysler's latest generation of minivans?the 1996 Dodge Caravan, Plymouth Voyager and Chrysler Town & Country?Yates's narrative, which often smacks of boosterism, also delineates the company's shift from a traditional vertical management system to project teams involving cross-pollination of design, engineering, finance and marketing, The minivan saga?beset by internal rivalries, potential disasters, niggling glitches and sluggish production start-up at the mile-long assembly line in a St. Louis, Mo., suburb?is framed by the departure of Chrysler chief Lee Iacocca, whom Yates flays as a "self-engrandizing huckster," and by Iacocca and Kirk Kerkorian's failed 1995 hostile takeover bid. The minivans also faced a public relations nightmare: seven major class-action suits alleging that dozens of deaths had resulted from faulty rear latches on early models. Chrysler reached a court settlement, agreeing to replace 60% of the latches or to spend millions on consumer awareness programs. Yates is author of The Decline and Fall of the American Auto Industry. Photos. Translation and U.K. rights: Carol Mann Agency.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (August 12, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316967084
• ISBN-13: 978-0316967082
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #938,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Interesting view of the Auto Industry, July 2, 2003

By 

H. Row "in1ear" (Arvada, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Critical Path: Inventing an Automobile and Reinventing a Corporation (Hardcover)

We've owned four Caravan / Voyagers, so I had a distinct curiosity about the book's subject. The book was interesting when describing the design issues involved with "the vehicle that saved Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge". The book gives a good feel for the business end of the big bucks car industry, trying to guess what world economy and whim of the American buyer will sell cars five years down the road.
Brock Yates' writing style lends itself better to one page editorial writing or brief commentary within specifications laden car articles. He KNOWS the subject but has a boring style. Overall, though the subject to me was worth finishing the book.
John Row

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An excellent counterpoint to the Iacocca books...., May 5, 2000

By 

Leo B "Scientist" (Cupertino, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Critical Path: Inventing an Automobile and Reinventing a Corporation (Hardcover)

As you will find out if you read this book, Iacocca was not a car guy - he was a businessman, a "mogul" in the business of cars.

This book provides a counterpoint to the Iacocca books, from a different viewpoint: from within the engineering and production "trenches".

No only does Yates chronicle the development of the third generation minivan; he chronicles with it the transformation of the Chrysler Corporation.

Adequately written, very insightful. Incredible access to what transpired at Chrysler during this time.

Recommended. Especially for minivan owners or prospective buyers.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A frustrating, poor quality read., September 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Critical Path: Inventing an Automobile and Reinventing a Corporation (Hardcover)

Judging by Brock Yates' work as an "Editor at large" for Car and Driver magazine, one would expect witty, to-the-point writing in this book-- especially when one considers that discussing automobiles (more specifically, the gestation and development of a particularly important one) is what he excells at.

However, after trudging through the seemingly endless reworded repetitions of previously mentioned facts, poorly formed sentences, and numerous instances of completely unfactual statements, I was left with a lessened view of the man's talents.

There is a smattering of interesting information here, though, so those with an interest in the automobile industry would do themselves a favor to pick this up and slog through the poor stuff to get to the nuggets.

Yates has spent a lot of his outstanding career bemoaning, justifiably, the lack of quality in various automobiles. His effort in the book, however, makes him seem as a bit of a hypocrite, unfortunately, and my previously high opinion of the man's work has lessened.

I felt used after reading this. Shame on you, Yates.