NEW YORK — John J. Riccardo, who as chairman and chief executive of Chrysler recruited Lee Iacocca before stepping aside as the automaker neared bankruptcy, died Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 91.

Chrysler was in turmoil by the time Mr. Riccardo took over in 1975.

The Arab oil embargo had sent shock waves through the American auto industry in 1973, as high gasoline prices and long lines at the pump prompted many consumers to turn to foreign-made imports that were more fuel-efficient. Chrysler, at the time, was caught flat-footed, with cars like the New Yorker, a four-door sedan that was a shade over 19 feet long and weighed more than 2 tons.

Beyond that, Chrysler did not have the resources of its much bigger domestic rivals, General Motors and Ford, and it faced safety and environmental regulations from an increasingly assertive government.

Mr. Riccardo, an accountant who joined Chrysler in 1959, did not have an easy time ahead. He was known as “the flamethrower,’’ in recognition of the tough, aggressive way he approached his job and demanded performance from those under him, The New York Times reported when he was named chairman and chief executive on July 8, 1975.

One of his biggest priorities was to fight back against what he saw as excessive government regulation. Within weeks of becoming chairman, he made a speech in Michigan in which he argued that the federal government’s increasing interest in safety and the environment imposed unnecessary burdens on manufacturers and were a threat to the nation’s prosperity.

Chrysler’s research, he contended, showed that new emissions standards were “substantially more stringent than necessary to protect the public health.’’

Still, it was Mr. Riccardo who gave the green light to develop a new generation of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. He approved $700 million to build the new front-wheel-drive vehicles known as K-cars, introduced in 1980.

“For a company facing the genuine possibility of bankruptcy, it was an almost unbearable call, and it was John Riccardo’s responsibility to make,’’ David Halberstam wrote in his 1986 book about the auto industry, “The Reckoning.’’

But it would not be Mr. Riccardo who made the K-car a success. That job fell to Iacocca, the brash Ford executive who was largely responsible for the Mustang, and whom Riccardo recruited to be Chrysler’s president in 1978.

Mr. Riccardo retired in September 1979, as Chrysler was trying to persuade the federal government to bail it out of its financial problems. The company’s request for a $1.2 billion package of loan guarantees had already been denied once by President Carter.

In announcing his retirement, Mr. Riccardo cited poor health. But he also worried that remaining as chairman might make winning approval for government aid more difficult.

Iacocca quickly championed the K-car. Mr. Riccardo’s bet would pay off. The next year, Chrysler was given $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees. And in 1983, Chrysler paid off its loans, about seven years early.

K-cars such as the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant had been “instrumental in the financial recovery of the company,’’ Chrysler said at the time. They would also pave the way for the company’s successes.