For more than 10 years, Motor Trend has recognized the 50 most influential people in the industry with our annual Power List. Engineers, designers, executives, race car drivers, visionaries, actors, and entertainers have made our list by making their mark on car culture, the car industry, or both. Every year, we scrutinize and rank the people who shape our passion and, starting in 2015, we honored the most influential person in the industry as the Motor Trend Person of the Year.
Read on to see who has topped the Motor Trend Power List since 2005.
2016 Person of the Year: Thomas Doll, Subaru of America President
The ultimate compliment any carmaker can receive is when a customer buys its vehicle. When Doll began working at Subaru in 1983, there weren’t many of those customers.
Now Subaru is bigger in the U.S. than Volkswagen and Kia. Last year, Subaru’s sales climbed 21 percent. Doll helped the once quirky brand go mainstream by making Subaru a lifestyle choice instead of merely a vehicle to purchase. Even before Doll had taken the reins at Subaru of America, his role as CFO helped cement changes at the company. He knew to hire the right people for the right job to implement his vision. And Subaru’s focus on affordable, well-equipped, and quietly capable symmetrical all-wheel-drive cars and crossovers helped give the brand a unique position in the marketplace. Thomas Doll, Motor Trend’s Person of the Year, brought it all together to make Subaru one of the auto industry’s real 2015 success stories.
#1 on the 2015 Power List: Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen AG Board of Management Chairman
VW’s master plan to be the No. 1 carmaker by 2018 meant hitting at least 10 million vehicle sales by then. Under Winterkorn’s leadership, VW reached that goal four years early. He has done it with great cars and seems poised to do the same with crossovers — VW’s Achilles’ heel. Expect hurdles in the future: rising emissions standards, waning Chinese sales, and an underperforming U.S. market. None of those seems impossible to overcome, especially with his innate ability to put the right people in the right positions. He continues to move executives around for his eventual succession, but it remains to be seen how much power he’ll relinquish.
#1 on the 2014 Power List: Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen AG Board of Management Chairman
Why he’s No. 1: There are only four more years before VW is supposed to become the No. 1 carmaker in the world. Winterkorn has been instrumental in pushing and pulling Volkswagen toward that goal.
What’s next: In November, Winterkorn announced that VW would invest $120 billion over the next five years to create new vehicles and environmentally friendly technologies, as well as improve powertrains.
#1 on the 2013 Power List: Sergio Marchionne, Chrysler Group LLC Chairman/CEO, Fiat SPA CEO
Why he remains first: Marchionne has taken the lead in trying to rein in Europe’s severe automotive overcapacity. He believes the E.U. needs to coordinate restructuring, rather than allow each country to subsidize its local automakers. He plans to merge Fiat and Chrysler by 2015.
Chrysler market share is back to normal, but that’s not what’s important: “Volume without cash is not a good volume. As we move up, I don’t expect our growth plans to slow down. The year-over-year increases are, by definition, going to narrow…”
Doesn’t underestimate competitors: “There is not a single guy in our shop who is not killing himself to build a breakout car. Me too. I know exactly how good the other guys are. We all have nightmares of how good they’re going to be. Which is what keeps us up at night.”
We say: Marchionne keeps the competition awake at night.
#1 on the 2012 Power List: Sergio Marchionne, Chrysler Group Llc Chairman/Ceo, Fiat SPA CEO
Why he’s first: Though Chrysler LLC was barely profitable in 2011, under Marchionne, it has quickly been transformed from a shrinking company with marginal market share to a resurgent one, with models like the Jeep Wrangler and the quickly upgraded Chrysler 200 leading the charge. Chrysler has come a long way from the dark days of Daimler and Dieter Zetsche, dog from hell Cerberus, and the June 2009 bankruptcy. Fiat Auto is Chrysler’s savior and majority owner under Marchionne, though he’s achieving that without diminishing individual brands Dodge, Ram, Jeep, Chrysler, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia. He may move some of Fiat’s operations from Turin, Italy, to the Chrysler headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
#1 on the 2011 Power List: Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Company Chief Executive Officer
Why he’s first: Kept Ford afloat without federal loans while he changed Ford’s culture and sold Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, interest in Mazda and shut Mercury division.
He says: “We not only survived the worst recession, but we are now missioned with probably the most complete, highest-quality product line. We’re seeing the result in growth in market share, in net pricing, residual values and we’re profitably growing the company.”
We say: Every one of Ford’s competitors needs a leader like Mulally.
#1 on the 2010 Power List: Ferdinand Piech, Volkswagen AG chairman of supervisory board
Why he’s first: Piech is the Machiavellian archmanipulator who managed to turn Porsche SE’s bid to buy Volkswagen AG on its ear. Last year, Porsche SE (the holding company) was buying up shares of VW AG. While Porsche was one of the world’s most profitable automakers going into the global Great Recession, it ran up the equivalent of $14.2 billion in debt by buying up 51 percent of the much larger, full-line company. When Porsche couldn’t meet debt obligations, Piech offered to “help out” by buying up the sports carmaker with VW stock. He won the game, beating his own cousin, Wolfgang Porsche, and demanded Wendelin Wiedeking resign just as the Panamera was being launched. We repeated this story in 2005, but Wolfgang and Wendelin didn’t read it: An expert downhill skier in school, Piech bought four pairs of skis each year and sold them at a profit at the end of the season to classmates who wanted to beat him.
#1 on the 2009 Power List: Takeo Fukui, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. president/CEO
Why he’s first: The high-profile hydrogen fuel-cell car being test-marketed, Chrysler Turbine-like, in California. And there’s a clear hybrid strategy that undercuts Toyota in price by relying on the simpler Integrated Motor Assist (IMA). Mainstream Hondas tend to be small and midsize I-4- and V-6-powered cars and crossovers. Even Honda’s sole pickup is a unibody V-6. No wonder sales aren’t so bad.
Fukui says: “The foundation of our efforts is the Honda Company Principle that has guided our business for more than 50 years. Maintaining a global viewpoint, with products of the highest quality, at a reasonable price, for worldwide customer satisfaction.”
We say: It’s working. Honda is a right-size automaker with right-size cars.
#1 on the 2008 Power List: Rick Wagoner, General Motors chairman
Why he’s number one: Carlos Ghosn is fond of saying there’s no problem at a car company that good product can’t fix. Rick Wagoner has taken that to heart. He’s let his number-one car guy, Bob Lutz, help fix the primary problem GM has had since Ron Zarella was running the show, with his repugnant “brand management” style. All the GM engineers and designers on the Power List this year have contributed to Wagoner’s standing and the company’s refound product success. And some car-guy attitude has rubbed off on Wagoner, who, it turns out, is the man behind the “Blue Devil” Corvette ZR1.
He says: “People are going to see significantly greater distinctiveness in our product execution among our brands and they’re going to see less overlap in our product portfolio from brand to brand as well. It’s going to cover a broader portion of the market.”
We say: GM’s glory days could be ahead, once again. Toyota must show new respect.
#1 on the 2007 Power List: Fujio Cho, Toyota Motor Corporation chairman
Why he’s number one a year after disappearing from the list: Cho was unproven as chairman after this automaker, known for its anonymous leaders and its teamwork, promoted him up from president in 2005. In the last year, “What if Toyota overtook GM?” turned into “When will Toyota overtake GM?” in worldwide automotive sales. The number-two automaker’s leaked secret plans say the company will be number one worldwide in 2010, with 14 percent to 15 percent market share. It plans to do so largely with better sales in China’s emerging market and in Japan. In the last year, Toyota has bought a share of Subaru (after General Motors divested its interest in Fuji Heavy Industries) to use its Indiana production capacity, has purchased a share in Isuzu (also unloaded by GM) for its diesel technology, and has opened a new Tundra pickup line in Texas. Lexus has launched worldwide, and Scion is a specialty-segment success in the States.
He says: “We must pay greater attention than ever to customer feedback, based on a commitment to putting customers first. I also believe that to sustain growth we must stay true to manufacturing fundamentals while carefully monitoring countries and markets to keep ahead of world trends.”
We say: That’s why Toyota, not GM, is now the Big Target.
#1 on the 2006 Power List: Carlos Ghosn, Nissan Motor Corporation CEO
Why he’s number one–again: In six years, Ghosn has successfully implemented the Revival Plan and Nissan 180 and has changed the nature of Japanese business. The Revival Plan reversed losses–seven of the last eight years when Ghosn took over in late 1999–to five consecutive years of record profits, coming in at $4.6 billion in 2005. Nissan 180 delivered on Ghosn’s promise to raise Nissan worldwide sales by one million units to 3.6 million between 2001 and 2004. Now, recognizing that automakers often fall as hard with the next product cycle as they rose with the last, Ghosn has launched “Value Up.”
He says: “In the business field, diversity is a strength, it’s a weapon. You can make Japanese, French, and Americans work together in an effective way and deliver more value than a company with a uniform culture. I think it’s worth demonstrating, and this is something I’m taking to heart demonstrating by steering both companies.”
We say: With that attitude, he’ll be at the top of this game for a long time.The road ahead: Straight. Better chance than many of keeping his company on the upswing.
#1 on the 2005 Power List: Carlos Ghosn, Nissan Motor Corporation CEO
Why he’s first: The reinvention of Nissan. Japan’s number-two automaker was in deep trouble before Renault pumped in $5.4 billion and put Ghosn in charge in 1999. His three-year Revival Plan cut thousands of jobs and closed a plant — no-nos in Japan — and replaced losses with profit after just two years. Nissan now has the highest margin of any mainstream automaker and one of the coolest model ranges: 350Z, Altima, Murano, Infiniti G35, M45, and FX35/45, and upcoming Cube and Skyline GTR.
By blending Japanese production engineering with European design flair and product innovation, he’s created a powerful new hybrid car company.
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