WASHINGTON -- When Chrysler teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in 1979, the automaker spent months building support for a $1.5 billion loan guarantee that helped save the company and tens of thousands of jobs.

Nearly 30 years later, the U.S. auto industry is getting only weeks to make its case.

Still, the Chrysler chapter offers lessons to the executives of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC -- the private equity successor to the old Chrysler Corp. -- as well as the United Auto Workers union as they try to win support in Congress for a stalled $25 billion rescue plan.

Chrysler's predecessor secured the loan guarantees because labor, management and other stakeholders all made concessions, analysts and lawmakers said. The company also benefited from the salesmanship of its chairman, Lee Iacocca, as well as a broad coalition of supporters and a more dominant hold on the domestic auto market.

Chrysler's efforts in 1979 did not get off to a fast start. Struggling with its largest-ever quarterly loss, a fleet of inefficient cars and high gas prices, Chairman John Riccardo appealed to the Carter administration that July for $1 billion to stabilize the company and protect its 250,000 workers.

Charles Hyde, a Wayne State University history professor, said many people forget that Chrysler was forced to come up with $2 billion in concessions from unions, white-collar employees, dealers, suppliers and banks as part of the deal. State and local governments connected to plants provided tax concessions, and Chrysler was required to adhere to tight government supervision after it received the loans.

Riccardo announced his resignation in September and was replaced by Iacocca, a master salesman who introduced the wildly popular Ford Mustang in the 1960s.

Iacocca agreed to work for a $1 a year until Chrysler turned a profit. He traveled between Detroit and Washington on commercial airlines.

Iacocca teamed with then-Detroit Mayor Coleman Young to make the case for the loans. Together, they served as a "one-two punch," said Reginald Stuart, who covered the 1979 rescue as The New York Times' Detroit bureau chief and wrote a book about it.

Iacocca and Young brought in the Urban League and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to help their cause and organized a grass-roots campaign by business and city leaders, dealerships, auto suppliers and others.

Four days before Christmas, Congress passed the bill, providing Chrysler a $1.5 billion loan guarantee -- 50 percent more than the company originally sought. Signed by President Jimmy Carter in January 1980, the legislation gave the government broad oversight of the company and an ownership stake. Chrysler avoided bankruptcy and went to develop its highly successful fuel-efficient K-cars.

Chrysler eventually drew down $1.2 billion in loans and repaid them within three years, seven years early. Chrysler turned a profit in 1982 and the government made $311 million in the sale of stock warrants and another $25 million in loan guarantee fees.

"We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way," Iacocca said later. "We pay it back."

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