Word: automen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Ford carefully guards his privacy and that of his family. He does not socialize with his employees or other automen. Ford Motor executives are not unhappy about that. They would just as soon not drink with the boss because of his unpredictable moods. Ford likes to travel in Europe, which he does at least four times a year, partly because he is not recognized on the streets there and waiters do not fawn over him as much as they do in the U.S. One former subordinate thinks that he has a defensive streak because he has been surrounded for years...
...automen generally anticipate that their market in the early 1970s will amount to about 10 million cars a year. American Motors' Chairman Roy Chapin expects that sales of imports over the next several years will decline from the 1,000,000 of 1969 to about 750,000, and that the market for subcompacts will climb to some 800,000. "The emphasis on smaller cars," says Chapin, "will come from all directions -traffic congestion, rising costs, multiple-car families. Our products, we believe, are right on target." Now the whole industry is zeroing in on that target...
...reason for the economy's slowdown is that U.S. consumers are beginning to strike back at inflation with their ultimate weapon: refusal to buy. U.S.-made cars are what consumers are most conspicuously not buying. Last fall, automen gambled that they could raise prices an average of 6% and still keep sales high. They lost. Though sales of less expensive imports continue to rise, dealers have sold fewer U.S.-made cars for the past three months than a year earlier. Sales were off almost 10% in December and 22% in the first ten days of January. Detroit reduced production...