LOS ANGELES — Clifford Schmillen, who fought with the Marines as a pilot in the Pacific during World War II and later played a key role in driving the growth of Japanese automaker Honda in the United States, died Jan. 6 in Palos Verdes. He was 86.
He died of complications from double pneumonia, his family said.
In 1976, the year Schmillen was named national auto sales manager at American Honda Motor Co., the company sold 150,929 cars in the United States. When he retired in 1990 as executive vice president, Honda’s annual sales in the nation were approaching 855,000.
“He was there when Honda’s product lineup was the Civic and the Accord,” said consultant George Peterson at AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin. “The products were spookily good. I was at Ford at the time, and we used to say, ‘How do they do this stuff?’ ”
In addition to helping orchestrate Honda’s American growth, Schmillen also was instrumental in two major initiatives: the opening of Honda’s Marysville, Ohio, assembly plant in 1982 and the launch of the Acura luxury car line in 1986. Both were firsts for a Japanese automaker and positioned Honda as a serious challenger to the Big Three U.S. automakers as well as to homeland competitors Toyota and Nissan.
