Lee Iacocca, who led Ford in the 1970s and is credited with saving Chrysler from extinction in the 1980s, summed up the grim mood in Detroit when he visited his adopted hometown last week and chided its automakers for lagging the Japanese in developing fuel-sipping hybrids.

"They should get off their asses and build more hybrids," he told The Detroit News.

"Something's got to happen in this town to turn it around, or we're all going down the tubes," Iacocca said.