Bennett Bidwell Leaving Post at Chrysler Corp. : The outspoken executive is the fourth high-ranking official to leave the No. 3 domestic car maker in the last year.

The automotive business is losing one of its last executives who rose through the ranks while car making was the king of industry when Bennett E. Bidwell retires from a top post at Chrysler Corp.

Bidwell, who remains an unabashed, flag-waving fan of American cars, came of age when the Big Three didn’t worry about imports and no one had heard of a catalytic converter.

During 37 years of selling and renting cars, Bidwell eventually took charge of Chrysler’s car- and truck-making operations as chairman of Chrysler Motors. Along the way, he developed a reputation as one of the industry’s most colorful and outspoken, sometimes profane, executives.

At the end of the month, Bidwell, 63, bids farewell to the industry that has fallen a long way since the era when it was, as he says, “king of the world.”

He becomes the fourth high-level executive to leave Chrysler during the past year. The most notable was former Vice Chairman Gerald Greenwald who quit to lead an unsuccessful effort by three unions to buy United Airlines.

Bidwell is leaving when Chrysler is under enormous pressure. Earlier this month, California billionaire Kirk Kerkorian disclosed that he bought 9.8% of Chrysler’s stock, triggering a toughening of the corporation’s “poison pill” anti-takeover defense.

Even though some analysts think that Chrysler will lose money in 1990 as some of its top vehicles suffer slipping sales, Bidwell said he sees Chrysler moving purposefully into the 21st Century.

But, peering over his glasses and leaning slightly forward during an interview, he said it will perhaps not emerge as the same Chrysler that was rescued from near bankruptcy in the early 1980s.

“At some point in time, I believe that Chrysler will strengthen its international alliances with somebody as part of the competition for the growth that’s going to occur in markets outside of North America,” he said.

Bidwell, with his matter-of-fact tone and no-nonsense attitude, apparently has been a good fit with Chrysler Chairman Lee A. Iacocca, also known to bluntly speak his mind.

Iacocca brought Bidwell to Chrysler in June, 1983, as executive vice president for sales, marketing and public affairs. For the two years before that, Bidwell had been president and chief operating officer of Hertz Corp.

It was a job he didn’t particularly like.

“I’ll tell you what was really boring,” Bidwell said. “That was trying to rent cars rather than sell them. It was a good rental company, a leadership company and all that.”

But there was no pizazz, he said, so he went back into the business of making and selling cars.

Bidwell’s introduction to the automotive industry came in 1953, when he moved from a natural gas company in 1953 to Ford Motor Co.’s district sales office in Boston. It was a big cultural change--one he said he doesn’t regret.

“When you’re an economist with a natural gas company, it’s kind of hard to strike up a conversation,” he said.

Conversation is something Bidwell never has shunned. His direct manner is appreciated by some, criticized by others. Lately, he’s had a particular passion for confronting the press.

After lambasting the media for 11 pages in a speech last January, Bidwell, in characteristic form, asked rhetorically: “Are we dealing with congenital ‘sickos’ here? Or is it true that good news just won’t sell papers?”

Journalists had T-shirts made up commemorating the remark and sent a couple to Bidwell. Again, in true Bidwell form, he showed up about a month later at an Iacocca news conference on 1989 earnings wearing the T-shirt.

But Bidwell isn’t all bluster. He rose through Ford’s marketing operations until 1968, when he was named a vice president for Ford Motor Credit Co.

He later served as general manager for Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury division, its Ford division, sales vice president and vice president of for Ford’s North American car and truck group.

After the Hertz hiatus, Bidwell returned to selling cars when Iacocca persuaded him to come to Chrysler. He became chairman of Chrysler Motors on Nov. 10, 1988.

Bidwell, who plans to keep in touch with Chrysler but not sit on its board after he retires, will be doing some non-automotive consulting work with a New York company he wouldn’t identify.

And he’ll be playing some golf, one of his passions.

“The game plan is to be about 55% active,” he said.