Word: automen
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...downside, automen are not only fudging their earlier estimates of 6,100,000 new cars next year. They sold about 5,800,000 in 1957 and at year's end estimated sales of about 5,500,000 in 1958. As for the troubled railroads, they will see still another 5% to 7% drop in passenger traffic, while freight car loadings will show a continuing, but smaller (less than 10%), decline than in 1957. U.S. industry's headlong expansion will taper off in 1958; industry will invest only $34.5 billion in new plants and machines, down 7% from...
What Is Style? As always, there would be complaints that Detroit's new chromium chariots are too long, too heavy, too bold, too brassy. Yet the inescapable fact, as every automan knows, is that flash, dash and dazzle-what automen call style-are the attractions that sell new cars. Those brave enough, and successful enough, to produce startling new styles that catch the public fancy, as Chrysler discovered in 1957, can suddenly boost profits from $6,000,000 to $103 million (and rise from 15.9% to 19.5% of the market) in a single year. Conservatives who fall behind...
...some home-grown critics. Detroit's designers have been fooling the U.S. public for years. They argue that the rapid development of the foreign small-car market (estimated 1957 sales: 225,000) is a vote against ever-longer, ever-fancier Detroit designs. Actually, say the U.S. automen, it is a simple matter of economics. Though a small car costs almost as much to build as a big car, companies would produce them if the market ever demanded it. But the U.S. public still wants its cars big-like its country. "People want big things.'' says Walker. "They...
...designed. The driver who hopes to slip into 50-m.p.h. expressway traffic needs plenty of power just as he needs a big engine to run all the wonderful gadgets that make driving easier: air conditioning, power steering, power brakes, power seat, power windows. Instead of sneering. Europe's automen are starting to window-shop Detroit for exciting ideas. Such U.S. innovations as wrap-around windshields, twin headlights, bright colors, even a few tentative fins are now appearing on foreign cars...
...Oldsmobile models have fallen behind, expects no real trouble preparing for major model changeovers. G.M. is leading in a huge $25 million autumn bonus cleanup campaign by the industry that will help Detroit enter November with a normal inventory of 200,000 cars. As for 1958, say the automen, the 7,000,000 customers who made 1955 a record year should now be ready for what most of them seem to want-lower, wider, sportier cars-and be willing to pay what it costs to build them...