(FORTUNE Magazine) – His flashy signature is on the bottles, but don't assume Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, 67, spends his time flogging the wine and olive oil that bears his name. Says he: ''I have enough trouble selling cars.''

Even so, Iacocca's Villa Nicola Ltd. operation is branching out. This fall his moniker will appear on tubs of an olive oil spread that looks like margarine but has 27% less fat. Iacocca's marketing projection: ''It could be sensational.'' Hawking the wine, oil, and spread to restaurants and supermarkets falls to son-in-law Ned Hentz, 34, a former BBDO copywriter. Hentz married Iacocca's older daughter, Kathi, 33, in 1986, the same year Iacocca bought a 23-acre farm in Tuscany that he named after his father, Nicola, who died in 1973. The grapes and olives Villa Nicola uses come from nearby estates. So far the business loses money. A la actor-turned-grocer Paul Newman, 67, who gives earnings from his foods to AIDS research and other charities, Iacocca hopes a percentage of any future profits will go to research on diabetes, which killed his first wife, Mary. Iacocca is actually a tad more hands-on with the enterprise than he implies. Hentz calls him a ''great mentor'' who likes regular status reports. The food business grew from Iacocca's hobby of giving bottles of wine and olive oil to friends. Pictured below, the keen amateur cook uses his own product to make spaghetti sauce at the Hentz home near Boston. Cooking for the kids is a family tradition. When Iacocca is back in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he grew up, his mother, Antoinette, 88, fixes dinner.