Hero of Chrysler Saga to Move to Wall St. : Automobiles: The departure of Robert Miller appears to ensure Robert Lutz will be Lee Iacocca’s successor.

Robert S. Miller, a leading candidate to succeed Lee A. Iacocca and one of the heroes of Chrysler Corp.’s brush with bankruptcy in 1980, said Monday that he is leaving the car maker to become a Wall Street investment banker.

Miller, 50, vice chairman and chief financial officer at Chrysler, was named a senior partner at James D. Wolfensohn Inc., the blue chip firm chaired by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker.

Miller’s departure appeared to solidify the position of Robert A. Lutz, the president of Chrysler, as Iacocca’s heir apparent. The outspoken Iacocca has said he will retire as chief executive at the end of this year.

But the resignation further thins Chrysler’s executive ranks, which were weakened by the departures of several top managers last year.

Lutz--who has broad experience with cars and trucks--and finance man Miller were regarded as the top inside candidates. Lutz’s hand may have been strengthened in recent months by Chrysler’s progress in new-vehicle development.

But Iacocca is understood to have approached outsiders about the job, including a top General Motors executive who apparently turned him down. He said Monday that there are still “several outstanding candidates under consideration.”

Iacocca issued a statement praising Miller and said Miller has agreed to advise Chrysler in his new capacity at Wolfensohn Inc. on the company’s negotiations with lenders to the company’s financial subsidiary.

“I talked to Lee in Los Angeles last week, and I’m totally satisfied that it remains a wide-open race and that I was a strong candidate for the chairmanship,” Miller said in an interview.

But he said he wanted both a professional change and a change in lifestyle.

Miller was among numerous Ford Motor Co. executives lured to Chrysler by Iacocca, who had joined the No. 3 auto maker after being fired from the presidency of Ford by Henry Ford II.

Miller was put in charge of persuading about 400 banks around the world to agree to accept partial payment on outstanding debt before Chrysler could get access to $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees approved by Congress to save the company.

Miller literally rescued Chrysler from a burning building the night before the company, out of cash, was to close on the loans. He and colleagues salvaged a 70-foot-high stack of critical loan documents from law offices in an office tower where a major fire broke out, carrying them in boxes down 20 flights of stairs.