Gerald C. Meyers, a former chief government of the American Motors Corporation who helped spark the nation’s obsession with sport utility autos and oversaw the event of a number of the quirkiest vehicles of the Nineteen Seventies, died on June 19 at his house in West Bloomfield, Mich. He was 94.

His demise was introduced by his daughter Susan Meyers.

Mr. Meyers joined American Motors in 1962, after stints with Ford and Chrysler, and rose via the ranks as AMC fought to outlive in a market dominated by his former employers and General Motors, the so-called Big Three; on the time, they collectively produced 9 out of each 10 vehicles bought within the United States.

In 1970, as a senior manufacturing government, Mr. Meyers was given the duty of evaluating a attainable acquisition of Kaiser Jeep. He suggested AMC’s board towards it, noting the model’s severe manufacturing inefficiencies. But the board proceeded anyway — and put Mr. Meyers in cost.

To attraction to extra shoppers, he upgraded present Jeeps with higher engines, suspensions and interiors, and directed the event of a brand new wagon, the Jeep Cherokee, which got here out within the spring of 1974. Sales quickly surged, steadying AMC’s shaky funds and driving client curiosity in roomy off-road autos.

Mr. Meyers was quickly promoted to AMC’s high growth government. He led the design of a compact automotive that wouldn’t go away occupants feeling cramped, an effort that resulted, in 1975, within the Pacer: a brief, large four-passenger automotive with oddly curved rear home windows.

The Pacer’s glass-bubble look drew joking comparisons to the flying house vehicles of the TV cartoon present “The Jetsons,” though Motor Trend journal referred to as it “the freshest, most creative, most people-oriented auto to be born in the U.S. in 15 years.” Other offbeat cars adopted, together with one which married Jeep elements with a automotive physique — the AMC Eagle, the primary passenger automotive with all-wheel drive made within the United States.

Mr. Meyers, at 48, was named chief government in 1977, when AMC was struggling, controlling simply 2 p.c of the U.S. market. At 6 toes 2 inches tall, with the construct of the previous school soccer participant he was and the appears to be like of a Hollywood main man, he lower an imposing determine. He was often called an analytical but demanding supervisor — a distinction to his brash, tough-talking rival Lee Iacocca, who was scrambling to avoid wasting Chrysler.

“My way of doing things is different,” Mr. Meyers advised The Detroit Free Press that 12 months. “I do not intend to do things the way they were done before. I intend to strike out in other directions and break some new ground.”

AMC reported file earnings in his second 12 months on the helm, however when the U.S. economic system slumped in 1979, banks declined to provide AMC new loans. Mr. Meyers sought a companion and located one within the French automaker Renault, which purchased a stake in AMC for $150 million (about $670 million in the present day).

AMC began promoting Renault vehicles, and the 2 firms started collectively growing a brand new compact sedan to be referred to as the Alliance.

But AMC’s troubles continued. In 1982, Renault put in a brand new administration workforce, and Mr. Meyers retired at 53. Chrysler acquired AMC in 1987, disbanding most of its operations however retaining the Jeep model.

Mr. Meyers then started instructing at his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. He wrote two books on company disaster administration, one co-written together with his daughter Susan. From 1991 to 2017 he taught on the Ross School of Business on the University of Michigan.

He relaxed by crusing a catamaran. “If there was a breeze, and it got up on one hull, he was happy,” Susan Meyers stated.

Mr. Meyers’s influence on the business can nonetheless be seen in the present day. Cars with all-wheel drive make up a worthwhile area of interest for manufacturers like Subaru and Audi. The Pacer achieved cult fame, having appeared as the powder-blue ride of Mike Myers’s character within the two “Wayne’s World” motion pictures. And Americans’ fondness for Jeep-like autos hasn’t relented. Today half of all autos bought within the United States are labeled as S.U.V.s.

Gerald Carl Meyers was born on Dec. 5, 1928, in Buffalo. His father, Meyer Smuzek, was an immigrant from Poland who labored in New York City’s garment district earlier than shifting to Buffalo, the place he modified his final identify to Meyers and opened an upscale tailoring store. Gerald’s mom, Berenice Meyers — her surname at beginning was the identical as her married identify — was an opera singer.

The younger Mr. Meyers skipped two grades in elementary faculty, graduated from highschool at 15 and talked his means right into a job parking vehicles at a storage despite the fact that he didn’t know methods to drive. “I banged up a few,” he laughed in a house video. After a 12 months at Canisius College in Buffalo, he transferred to Carnegie Mellon — then referred to as Carnegie Technical Institute — the place he captained the soccer workforce. After graduating in 1950, he was invited to check out for the Baltimore Colts however determined he’d endured sufficient damaged noses and bones, Susan Meyers stated.

Mr. Meyers landed a administration coaching job at Ford. But when the Korean War began, he entered an Air Force officer coaching program and served as a lieutenant in Greenland. After returning house, he acquired a grasp’s diploma from Carnegie Tech in 1954, then discovered a job at Chrysler, the place he typically wore fits and coats made by his father.

At 26, he wrote out his life targets on a sheet of paper. He needed to marry by the age of 30 and have two kids by 33 and a 3rd by 35. He needed to make $30,000 a 12 months by age 45 (the equal about $340,000 in the present day) and $50,000 by 55, and he listed all of the positions he thought he’d want to achieve on the best way to changing into a company officer.

While working at Chrysler, Mr. Meyers requested his roommate if he knew any ladies he might date. The roommate pulled a crumpled slip of paper out of the trash with the variety of Barbara Jacob, a purchaser at a division retailer. They married in 1958, had three kids and finally moved to Bloomfield Township, a rich suburb of Detroit.

His spouse died in 2009, and his son, Andrew, died in 2019. In addition to his daughter Susan, he’s survived by one other daughter, Nancy Meyers, and a grandson.

Susan Meyers recalled that her father’s regular method by no means appeared to waver. When she as soon as crashed a Pacer that he had leased for her, he stated nothing, she recalled, and a brand new Pacer merely arrived about two weeks later. “I think he thought totaling the car was its own punishment,” she stated.

Eventually, although, he was considerably bothered by the S.U.V. craze that he had helped set in movement. In a column he wrote for The New York Times in 2000, he lamented the big measurement of the gas-guzzling S.U.V.s that Detroit was then producing.

“I feel like Dr. Frankenstein these days, having pumped life into a corpse only to face the horror of its evolution,” he wrote. If the business wasn’t going to return to creating smaller fashions, he added, “maybe it would have been better to let Jeep’s corpse rest undisturbed.”