Donald Frey, a senior product planning manager at Ford Motor Co. in the 1960s who along with Hal Sperlich and Lee Iacocca developed the iconic Ford Mustang, died on March 5 in Evanston, Ill., from a stroke. He was 87 years old.
Frey led the team at Ford that set out to develop an affordable, sporty car in the early 1960s. But with Ford reeling from the Edsel flop, Frey couldn't get a standard budget for the project. So he piggybacked on other programs--borrowing the platform and instrument panel from the Ford Falcon--to create the Mustang. The program was created in just 18 months.
The original Mustang debuted on April 17, 1964, at the New York World's Fair. Managers expected to sell a bit less than 90,000 units the first year, but sales topped the 400,000 mark.
Frey was born in St. Louis, Mo., in 1923 and grew up in Iowa. He joined Ford in 1950. In addition to the Mustang, Frey was a key figure in Ford Motorsports. He succeeded Iacocca has head of the Ford Division and kept up Ford's participation in NASCAR and international racing at Le Mans. He is also credited with working on the original Ford Bronco.
He left Ford in 1968 to head General Cable Co., then became chairman and CEO of Bell & Howell in 1971. During his tenure he helped engineer the first CD-ROM. He also became a key player in getting Hollywood to release its films on videotape, thus creating the home-video entertainment industry.
Frey retired from Bell & Howell in 1988, and later worked as a research and professor at Northwestern University.
Shia Kapos of Crain's Chicago Business contributed to this report.
