2018 Photos of the year: People

Personal laptop
Chris Bangle, former BMW design chief who now runs his own shop, gets up close and personal with Automotive News Print Editor Richard Johnson at the Automotive News World Congress in January. The always-animated car stylist was demonstrating ideas for seating positions in future cars. 

Symbolic tie
Appearing onstage in May at the Balocco track near Turin, perennially tie-less Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne unzipped a black sweater and, paraphrasing Oscar Wilde, revealed an “arguably well tied” blue tie. He was keeping a promise to wear it after FCA achieved long-term financial goals. He later ditched the tie, above, but Agnelli family scion John Elkann held it up like a trophy.

Christmas wish
Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, helps launch the Canadian union’s #SaveOshawaGM advertising campaign by unveiling its Tree of Hope in Memorial Park in Oshawa, Ontario, in December. The union plans a campaign in Canada and the United States as part of its effort to save General Motors’ assembly plant in Oshawa. GM in November said it would stop allocating production to Oshawa and two assembly plants in the U.S. in 2019.

‘Bad choices, bad decisions’
Denny Hecker, the Minnesota megadealer who pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy and bank fraud and spent several years in prison, was paroled in a halfway house in Minneapolis in March. Interviewed by Automotive News in July, he said, “Car dealers have big egos; it just goes with their success. And sometimes, you know, you start feeding that ego, and there’s no end to it. It’s an addiction.”

In memory of Marchionne 
The life of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne, who died in July, was honored in Italy and in the U.S. Attending the service are, from left: FCA Chairman John Elkann; his wife, Lavinia Borromeo; FCA CEO Mike Manley; Gianluigi Gabetti, former CEO of FCA’s holding company; Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri; and Ferrari Vice Chairman Pietro Ferrari. 

The Duomo of Turin where a memorial service Sergio Marchionne was held on Sept. 14.

On Sept. 27, thousands of FCA employees ring the atrium of the company’s technology center in Auburn Hills, Mich., to hear eulogies delivered by Elkann and Manley.