Joe Hilger’s name doesn’t pop into many books in the history of Direct Connection, but it should. Joe was an executive at Chrysler during the 1980s and became a director when the corporation was fixated on 2.2L turbo engines and a front-wheel-drive passenger car platform. Long gone were the Challenger, Charger, Road Runner, GTX, Super Bee, ’Cuda and other iconic nameplates that gave Chrysler its street creds during the muscle car movement. For Mopar®’s Direct Connection, they continued during this “dark era” in which the factory-built 426 HEMI®, 440 Six Pack and other hi-potent V8 engines were long gone, but Direct Connection still offered high-performance parts and tech advice for racers wanting to go faster and enthusiasts looking to burn rubber on the streets.
It may have been the darkest of times for Chrysler V8 performance, but for Joe Hilger, he had high-octane race fuel pumping through his veins. Standing over six feet tall, Joe still epitomizes the look of a corporate exec. Well-educated, well-polished and well-spoken, Joe fit the mold. Still, unlike some of his peers, Joe was a gearhead that spent his high school and college days hanging on the fence at many drag strips and watching his Mopar heroes like Ronnie Sox and Dick Landy powershift their way to victory in their HEMI engine-powered Super Stockers trailering the competition. “I was born in Kansas, and my family had a farm. They did all their own mechanical work, and my father would say ‘Anything built by man can be fixed by man’ and he meant it,” smiled Joe. Like most farm kids, Joe was driving well before he had a license, and his love of cars increased even more. “My dad had a 1956 Dodge at the time and he and my uncle would talk about HEMI engines, that’s one of the reasons I love Mopars so much,” noted Joe.
While in high school, Joe took Auto Shop and rebuilt a Chrysler 225 Slant Six while getting his hands dirty on other class assignments before graduating in 1967. Joe then headed off to Pittsburg State University in Kansas to pursue a BS in Industrial Technology with a degree in Automotive Technology. “While in college, I had a 1966 383-powered Dodge Coronet with a four-speed,” noted Joe. “I absorbed as much knowledge as possible, I guess you could say I was a wannabe engineer,” laughed Joe. “I graduated from college in 1972 and while still on campus, I interviewed with the Kansas City Zone Manager from Chrysler. I think he saw my passion for the automotive industry, and my stellar grades, and I aced the interview.” After getting hired into Mopar’s Parts and Service Division in 1972 as a young Chrysler Zone Manager working out of the Kansas City region, Joe brought his hard work ethic and common-sense approach when calling on dealers. “I learned and listened to what the customer was saying. Diagnose the issues, ask the right questions and fix the problems,” said Joe. “My internal driver and mindset are a lot like drag racing and that is to be prepared, know what you’re doing and look at the finish line.”
Joe and his family moved around the country as he worked his way up the corporate food chain. All was well until Chrysler went bankrupt during the late 1970s and early ’80s. Despite this, Joe used his experience and showed dealers that despite lackluster new car sales, they could still be profitable in their parts and service operations. After a series of promotions, Joe made his way to Mopar HQ in Centerline, Michigan, around 1984. Chrysler still had a bankruptcy hangover, and Mopar was still feeling it. By 1986, the finance guys wanted to kill off Direct Connection, but Joe knew the importance of this iconic performance parts brand. “Direct Connection was a halo brand for Mopar, and our racers and street enthusiasts embraced it. However, the budgets were tight and financially we had to do something. Having two brands and marketing them is very expensive. We were committed to staying in the performance parts business and the team had to come up with a viable solution,” noted Joe. With the business climate of the day, Mopar and Direct Connection were being scrutinized very closely by Chrysler’s Senior Management and Leadership Board and the major player leading the charge was Gino J. Giocondi.
“Gino (Giocondi) was a smart businessman. He always told us, ‘When you have stockholders, you can’t lose money’ and he was right. Direct Connection by itself was not pulling its weight as a separate brand and department. The company’s direction at the time was tough. We were mostly a front wheel drive company at the time. The Direct Connection catalog, as good as it was, was not covering the overhead costs,” said Joe as he reflected on that era of uncertainty. “Mopar Parts was making money, and I was growing fast-moving products such as collision parts, service items and accessories. Unfortunately, without corporate support for Direct Connection, the decision was made to ‘close it down.’ That meant getting rid of everything Direct Connection had achieved since it was launched in 1974 and I was not going to do that. I walked out of the executive office at Mopar HQ, grabbed Larry Shepard (Chief Direct Connection Engineer) and Larry Henry (Direct Connection Product Manager), and told them about my idea to rename Direct Connection to Mopar Performance. Since the head of Direct Connection, Brian Schram, was out of town, we knew we had to do something quickly,” recalled Joe.
Knowing speed to market is important in launching a new brand, Joe and his team quickly investigated if Mopar Performance would be a viable alternative to Direct Connection. They were right, as the diehard community of Mopar gearheads embraced the new brand and sales went up. “We live in a process-driven world to reduce overhead and this rebranding work. Mopar Performance became part of the Chrysler Corporation field support, everything from purchasing to sales. Better than that, we linked our message to technicians (both dealers and independent shops) about Mopar quality with Mopar Performance Parts as the link. So, when I look back, that decision to keep performance inside Mopar was the right thing to do,” said Joe. “I made sure to discuss the move with Gino (Giocondi) first and told him ‘You are right, Gino. We don’t have enough budget to market two brands, so we are going to reposition Direct Connection as MOPAR PERFORMANCE PARTS’. Gino was happy and he realized it was a huge benefit to the overall Mopar brand image,” stated Joe. But Joe wanted Gino to see the passion among major influencers and arranged a lunch meeting with “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, Carl Schiefer of Schiefer Media, and Gino Giocondi. Joe reflected on a comment Gino made to him after that important lunch meeting. “On the way back to the office, Gino said to me, ‘Wow, those guys are passionate about Mopar!’ I said, you’re correct, and we can take advantage of that in our messaging. We got a small budget, but we can make it work.”
That’s just one of the many great things Joe Hilger did to save the performance parts business for Mopar. In Part Two of “MOPAR’S UNSUNG HERO,” we’ll look at Joe’s foresight in getting the famed “HEMI” name trademarked before other automakers could get their grimy hands on this celebrated brand and tarnish its reputation.
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