Iacocca’s Wife Shocked, Wants to Save Marriage

DETROIT —  A shocked Peggy Iacocca says she remains deeply in love with Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee Iacocca and hopes to save their 8-month-old marriage, it was reported today.

The former Peggy Johnson, 36, who married Iacocca last April 17, was served divorce papers from Iacocca on New Year’s Eve.

Her lawyer, George Vogelsang, told the Detroit Free Press that Johnson was shocked by the 62-year-old Iacocca’s action. Johnson is Iacocca’s second wife. His wife of 27 years, Mary, died in December, 1984. Johnson had been married for three months in 1975 to Brook Rasor.

“She is hoping that what was a marital spat with Mr. Iacocca will immediately result in their reconciliation,” Vogelsang said.

Iacocca could not be reached for comment.

Earlier, the newspaper reported that a prenuptial agreement and a dispute over where the couple would live prompted the breakup of their brief marriage.

Sources close to the couple said the prenuptial contract may have been drafted by Johnson’s lawyer in Miami to protect the former stewardess in case of Iacocca’s death.

The divorce complaint does not mention the prenuptial contract but instead asks the court to establish an “equitable distribution” of “certain property acquired during the term of the marriage.”

Such property could include profits from the sale of a Grosse Pointe Farms mansion, once owned by Henry Ford II, which the couple sold about five months after they bought it. They never lived there.

Close friends of the couple attributed the breakup to “her reluctance to move to Detroit--and his not wanting to go to New York.”

Johnson has not worked since the marriage but has maintained a posh New York City apartment.