July 13: Henry Ford II gives Lee Iacocca the boot from Ford on this date in 1978

The U.S. auto industry isn't nearly as large a part of the American economy today as it was in the 1970s. To understand the bombshell that came from Henry Ford II, grandson of Ford founder Henry Ford, firing then-president Lee Iacocca in 1978, one has to imagine the uproar if, say, Microsoft suddenly fired chief executive Steve Ballmer after spending $1.5 million investigating his private life.

Henry Ford II promoted the brash Iacocca to president in 1970, after two decades of work at Ford that included shepherding the Ford Mustang into creation. But the two clashed fiercely, with Ford often using the phrase "my name is on the building" in arguments. Iacocca would write afterwards that Ford's words to him upon his firing were a curt "sometimes you just don't like somebody."

History will score this move as a win for Iacocca -- who not only moved on to save Chrysler a year later, becoming an international business celebrity in the process, but took with him a few key executives from Ford and some ideas, like one for a smaller, "garageable" van that became the minivan. In this 1984 ad, Iacocca puts on a classic display of the bluster and force that made him an excellent salesman, a prototype of the CEO as company face that Steve Jobs would later master. It's a display that I can't envision any current Detroit CEO matching today.