Word: automen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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This midnight ride of American Motors engineers was a regular test in their effort to develop doors that slam with what automen call a solid "thunk." One result showed up last week as American Motors introduced the Hornet, its new small car, with an advertisement that urged: "Open a door and listen for the reassuring thunk you get when you close it." In auto showrooms, the sound of a car door slamming touches some responsive chord in the frazzled psyche of the American buyer-and all the automakers know it. "There is very little to go on when...
...course, there have been some changes in prices. G.M.'s are up an average of $125 a car, Ford's $108, Chrysler's $107, American Motors' $81 (though the Hornet, at $1,994, is pointedly priced $1 below Ford's competing Maverick). Automen justify the increases by citing higher production costs. G.M. figures that payroll costs have risen 6% in the past year and will go up another 6% this month under terms of the company's labor contract; steel is up 6%, copper and lead 24%, zinc...
...choice of five vinyl roof colors, plus 16 body colors, and 33 sets of interior trim. All that contributes to the more than $2 billion that Detroit is spending to bring out its new models, and denies auto plants the economies of long production runs of identical cars. Automen insist that they are only giving the public what it wants. Nobody wants to revert to the marketing philosophy that the buyer can have a car in any color so long as it is black. But quite a few buyers might be willing to settle for less choice in return...
...same performance. The same luxury. The same Chrysler. But at a final clearance price." Carmakers offer trips to Hawaii or Puerto Rico for the most successful salesmen and their wives; the salesmen smile more and persist longer with customers. That is what happens during the annual automobile "cleanup, when automen are anxious to get rid of last year's cars and prepare the public for the coming year's models...
American automakers are worried about Japanese inroads, not only in the U.S. market, but in such places as Australia, South Africa and South America. As a result, Detroit has been putting pressure on Washington to force open the Japanese market in two ways. U.S. automen want Japan to lower such nontariff barriers as commodity sales taxes and road-use taxes based on car size. More important, they insist that Tokyo should ease its severe restrictions against foreign investment in Japanese manufacturing firms. General Motors Chairman James Roche recently called Japan "the most notorious" of the world's industrial countries...