Iacocca Prepares to Ride Off Into the Sunset : Autos: Chrysler’s chairman bids farewell to stockholders at the company’s annual meeting. He’s due to be replaced at the end of the year.

Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee A. Iacocca, his voice cracking with emotion, bade goodby to shareholders Thursday at what is expected to be the last annual meeting he will preside over as the company’s chief executive.

“ ‘Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever,’ ” Iacocca said, borrowing a line from the 1970 Western saga “Monte Walsh.” “And that includes me.”

Hanging up his spurs will not be easy for the 68-year-old auto executive. Having achieved corporate hero status for his role in rescuing Chrysler from bankruptcy in the early 1980s, Iacocca had hoped to stick around long enough to lead the company out of its current crisis.

But the lingering recession and a recent decision by the company’s board of directors to install a new chairman at the end of this year make Iacocca’s chances at an encore look increasingly slim.

The struggling auto maker posted a $256-million operating loss in the first quarter of this year, on top of 1991 losses totaling $795 million. And Iacocca acknowledged Thursday that an anticipated improvement in the second quarter will be offset by heavy spending on the launch of the company’s new Jeep Grand Cherokee and mid-sized sedans.

Seemingly resigned to the board of director’s decision last March to install former General Motors executive Robert Eaton as his successor at the end of this year, Iacocca somewhat wistfully told shareholders that he still hoped to be remembered as the one who laid the plans for what he says will be Chrysler’s second comeback.

Some of the most meaningful memories of his 46-year career, Iacocca said, are the introduction of the Mustang when he was president of Ford Motor Co., the Chrysler turnaround of a decade ago and the “minivan revolution.”

“But the biggest moments of all,” Iacocca said, brushing nostalgia aside, “the ones I hope somebody will remember to tie my name to someday, are the ones yet to come. My greatest satisfaction will be seeing where this company goes from here.”

The white hat Iacocca wore at the beginning of his 12-year tenure as Chrysler’s chairman turned black in the eyes of many Americans during the second half of the 1980s, as his compensation skyrocketed and the company’s fortunes began to sag.

But now, with costs down, new products in the pipeline and even Iacocca’s long crusade against Japanese trade practices beginning to bear fruit, the plot may be about to twist again.

Known for his Japan-bashing, Iacocca noted Thursday that Japan’s auto market is beginning to open up, and he praised the voluntary cap on auto exports announced by the Japanese government in March.

And Ford Chairman Harold A. Poling, at his company’s annual meeting Thursday, joined Iacocca in voicing support for a bill introduced in the U.S. House last week that would limit imports and restrict the sales of vehicles built by Japanese companies in the United States.

Iacocca said he identified with the “Monte Walsh” character who didn’t want to stop being a cowboy--even though the frontier was closing and he was getting old. But he may be loathe to ride into the sunset just as the company is turning around again.

But puffing a cigar tossed onto the podium by an admiring shareholder after the meeting, Iacocca passed his gavel to Eaton, who had stayed silently in Iacocca’s shadow throughout the annual ritual.

“I’ll stay around on the board for a while,” Iacocca told reporters as he autographed copies of his book. “But I don’t want to get in Bob’s way.”