A Family Affair

A look at Lee Iacocca’s personal 1965 Mustang convertible—his 50th and his daughter’s 30th birthday gift.

- Richard Truesdell

Lia Iacocca Assad has a unique perspective on automotive history as the namesake daughter of Lee and Mary Iacocca. She was born the same year as Lido’s third child, the Ford Mustang, and in many ways, they will forever be linked. But in a wide-ranging conversation with Mustang Monthly, Lia puts it in perspective: “He was just Dad,” says Lia, who bears a striking resemblance to her famous father, especially his disarming smile. “He left for work in the morning and when he wasn’t traveling came home for dinner, just like countless other dads. We were a family. I never saw us any different. But often as part of his job, as a family we traveled together, so growing up I had the opportunity to see a lot of the world.”

The Iacocca family story starts back in 1948 at Ford, during a conference where Lee met Mary McCleary, who was working at Ford as a receptionist. Around that time Mary learned that she had Type 1 diabetes. Her lifelong battle with diabetes would play an important part in Lee’s support and fundraising to find a cure for the disease. The couple married on September 29, 1956, and they had two daughters, Kathryn (Kate) and Lia.