As the 1990s dawned, Chrysler faced a renewed round of financial troubles. The US economy slipped into a recession following the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash and the Savings and Loan Crisis, but the company's main problems were due to a lack of engineering innovation and careless spending during the years of prosperity in the 1980s. Most of Chrysler's lineup was based on the proven, but dated K-car platform, plus debt accumulated from expensive purchases including Italian automaker Lamborghini along with American Motors, and critics routinely criticized their inability to produce cars that were competitive with Japanese companies or Ford, which had just struck a coup-de-grace with the Taurus line. It was time for Chrysler to make a fresh start for the 1990s. The Board of Directors at Chrysler announced that Lee Iacocca would retire at the end of 1992. Iacocca was promoting Gerald Greenwald as his replacement, but that bought opposition. Although some suspected that he would later turn the leadership over to Bob Lutz, the board instead designated an outsider, the straitlaced Bob Eaton as the new chairman. With Chrysler facing an uncertain future in the late 1980s, engineering teams were now allowed to explore new designs that had been largely discouraged under Iacocca's tenure.