Auto executives are not immune to financial turmoil. Chrysler Group Deputy Chief Executive Jim Press seems to be having his own personal economic crisis. Various sources are reporting that he owes $947,410 in back taxes to the IRS and has also defaulted on $609,286 loan. The Wall Street Journal has a letter from Press to the Western Federal Credit Union last November that has Press telling the bank that he was having a cash flow issue at the time but would pay his bills.

The IRS has filed a lien against his Birmingham, Michigan home which is on the market for $3.15 million (pictures in the gallery below). He bought the six-bedroom home in June 2008 and took out a $2.2 million mortgage. Press owns four homes total including a Manhattan home which was on the market for $15.7 million but is now longer on the market and has been rented for $35,000 according to Streeteasy.com. He also owns a home in Southern California and another one in New Orleans. Press who was at Toyota for over 20 years and made it through Chrysler's bailout, is expected to leave the company at the end of this year.

MLive.com says that Press earns $2.4 million a year from Chrysler and received a $50 million compensation package when he joined the company but that package diminished when Chrysler went into bankruptcy. Press is also said to have been spending $56,000 in child and spousal support to his ex-wife.

It's trendy lately to rage against the cushy deals that retired execs get but it saddens me a little to learn that Lee Iacocca, the car executive who turned Chrysler around n the 1980s, may lose a major part of his pension and a guaranteed life-long company car as part of the fall-out from Chrysler's bankruptcy deal. Reuters reports that Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli told a U.S. bankruptcy court that Iacocca's pension would be among the obligations Chrysler won't be paying if it gets bankruptcy court approval to sell itself to a "New Chrysler" to be owned by its union, the U.S. and Canadian governments and Fiat. Iacocca's retirement was part of a supplemental executive retirement plan including non-IRS qualified pension funds that are therefore subject to bankruptcy. Chrysler is also stopping a program that gave company cars for life to former executives and directors including Iacocca (shown above in 2005 with a Mercedes Maybach).

Iacocca, who was the president of Ford in the mid 1960s, came to national attention in the 1980s when he starred in the Chrylser commercials touting the quality and durability of his American-made cars. The gallery below traces Iacocca's career including his ill-fated adventure in selling electric bicycles. In a commercial from 1984, placed after the jump, it's interesting to see how Iacocca dealt with the bankruptcy facing his company over two decades ago. His straight talking approach and focus on hard work appealed directly to the American people buying his cars. As he says in the commercial: "I have one, and only one, ambition for Chrysler, to be the best."

President-elect Obama's new ride, the Cadillac Presidential Limousine was officially revealed just around the same time another Obama car his 2005 Chrysler 300C Hemi went back up on eBay. Obama leased the car in 2004 and traded it for a Ford Escape Hybrid in 2007. The car was bought by Tim O'Boyle who first tried to sell it on eBay in December. He took it off the site after his accountant told him it was wiser to own the car a year for tax purposes. Now it's back on eBay with a starting bid of $100,000 and a buy-it-now price of $1,000,000. The Kelley's Blue Book value for the car is $15,750. O'Boyle says he received a private offer of $150,000 the last time the car was up for auction and that he has a number in his head of what he wants. The 2005 330C has less than 21,000 miles on it and O'Boyle says it is in like-new condition.

Gas prices and the worldwide fuel situation are now officially responsible for the decision Chrysler just made to put the kabosh on plans for the new Imperial. The Imperial concept was first introduced last year at the Detroit Auto Show, and if built the Imperial would have fallen into the Chrysler line up at the very top -- above the 300C. But there will now be no Imperial, with Chrysler mentioning that the increasing costs for fuel and the ever tightening fuel economy standards would make production of the Imperial "irresponsible" at this time.

This 1985 Chrysler Town and Country would normally be worth less than $1,000, but throw in the fact that it belonged to Frank Sinatra and suddenly the price leaps to close to $40,000. The car has 77,777 miles on it and is currently located in England. The current owner bought it in Palm Springs in 2004. This car is considered prized to collectors because it may have been the last car Sinatra ever drove. It's probably also the least sexy car he ever drove. It is being sold by the Autotrader in England.