As the middle of the 1970s approached, Chrysler was facing an increasingly worrisome organizational and financial situation due to a combination of internal and external factors. The company had suffered the embarrassment of releasing new, bulkier full-sized C-body models for 1974 which promptly flopped due to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, and unable to fix the mounting difficulties beyond unsuccessful sales incentives, chairman Lynn Townsend took early retirement and left the reins to John Ricardo. By 1976, Chrysler had exhausted its cash reserves and had to pay for all operating costs with purely sales revenue. Ricardo attempted to seek a bailout from the Federal government to the tune of $7.5 billion, but President Jimmy Carter immediately turned him down.