Word: automen
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Auto-company executives, like election candidates, have never been known to poor-mouth their prospects. So when automen early this year talked down economic uncertainties and talked up a robust 9,000,000-car sales year, it seemed like just more chrome from Detroit's brass. Not any more, though. The way auto sales are going, the industry may find itself for once guilty of understatement...
...month, Ford Vice Chairman Arjay Miller leaned over to his companion and said he intended to quit. He said he had been invited to head Stanford University's Graduate School for Business effective next July. Miller recalls: "Mr. Ford understood why I wanted to go." So did other automen in Detroit. Miller's leavetaking had been expected since February, when Henry Ford II raided General Motors and came away with Semon E. Knudsen to replace him as president at Ford. Miller at 51 was shunted sideways into the newly created spot of vice chairman-after 22 years with...
...personal income and consumer spending to add up to "a moderate recession." In any case, the impact of peace will hit industries, areas and manpower unevenly. Many industries likely to lose war business-autos, textiles, rubber, for example-are those that can readily turn to industrial and consumer markets. Automen predict a big demand for cars among discharged veterans, and the housing industry, now confronted with another pinch in its mortgage-credit lifeline, foresees a major upturn fueled by lower interest rates if peace comes. Such an upturn would also lift sales of appliances, furniture and retail stores...
...Knudsen worked for 106 G.M. plants before, at 43, he was made boss of the drooping Pontiac Division. His first move was to order styling changes on the 1957 model to rid Pontiac of its "grandma" image-something that few automen would have dared just 60 days away from volume production. Off came two pieces of chrome across the hood and trunk lid-no matter that his fa ther had introduced them in 1935. Next, Knudsen reached for what the youth of the day wanted. He brought out a 21 in. wider and flashier model to appeal to young drivers...
...strategy is to battle for the medium-priced market, which G.M. dominates with its Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks. Obviously, Knudsen carries in his head much inside knowledge-from styling to engineering to marketing-of G.M.'s future plans. Nor can he erase them from his mind. But as automen quickly recognized, this was hardly what Henry Ford sought. What counts is the disciplined insight Ford most can use: Knudsen's ingrained intimacy with the concepts and techniques (from cost control to dealer organization) that have long made General Motors, by common consent of both friends and foes...