Word: automen
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...Since last fall the strategy has been paying off. Sales of imported cars so far this year have slumped to 14.5% of the total, down a percentage point from 1971; Volkswagen volume is off 23%. But sales of American-made cars are speeding up so sharply that some automen believe that the total this year could whiz to close to 11 million vehicles, v. 10.2 million last year. The auto spurt has helped to push overall U.S. retail sales about 10% ahead of a year...
...Model T. The small-car surge has at last convinced automen of an idea they long resisted: that the U.S. motorist is buying a functional car mostly for transportation rather than status, and will no longer automatically buy a larger and larger car as his salary rises. Chrysler Vice President Robert McCurry sees a "blue denim society" developing among drivers, and adds: "The fact that 80% of all the small cars are two-doors shows the demand for personal transportation." Detroit has adopted this theme in its marketing. Ford touts the Pinto as a "new Model T," presumably to suggest...
...salt to melt ice and snow. The salt, they think, got into a bearing that holds the rear axle together and caused it to deteriorate. Somehow that possibility was not considered in all the 19 million miles of test driving that Ford puts its new cars through each year. Automen insist that they cannot duplicate in road tests every condition that may come up in actual driving; that contention is no doubt correct, but it is hardly an excuse. Quite obviously, a large percentage of cars every year will be bought by people who live in the Northeast and must...
Main Rival. As vice chairman since April 1970, Gerstenberg has been a leading contender for the job. His main drawback was that his entire 39 year career at G.M. has been devoted to finance rather than to engineering or production, which many automen still regard as the drive shafts of the industry. But G.M. traditionally awards its chairmanship to the executive who seems best equipped to handle the problems immediately ahead. Gerstenberg's outstanding record of money management, and his articulateness in defending the auto industry against a growing number of critics, made him the choice. Thus "old Gerstenberg...
...Tokyo, Japanese businessmen saw a hidden meaning in the fact that some of the U.S. team members had corporate ties, especially their leader, Graham Steenhoven, a Chrysler personnel supervisor. Convinced that Steenhoven carried secret orders to clinch a business deal with Peking, Japanese automen telexed their U.S. offices to find out everything possible about him. Told that he was not listed among Chrysler's top executives, they cabled again: "Impossible, look harder...