Word: automen
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...stated reason: much as it wanted to make cars, the industry was far too deeply engaged in war production to consider it now. The real reason: the War Production Board's "Blue Order," under which the industry could order production materials now for delivery later, was only paper. Automen would not get the materials until WPB decided to release them; and no automan can plan production unless he knows what materials he will get, how much, and when...
...said it would let the industry make experimental postwar models. Again the automen said no. Their biggest manpower trouble lay in the engineering and drafting fields, where the burden of reconversion and new model planning would fall. The industry wanted to start by producing 1942 models; fundamental engineering changes are a big, long-time...
Detroit's dream-the biggest peacetime boom in all industrial history-was closer than ever to realization last week. Reporting on interviews with key automotive executives, FORTUNE said that even many of the most realistic automen expect 4,500,000 cars to be built in the first full year of postwar production, possibly 6,000,000 a year thereafter (previous top: 4,794,000 in 1929). Reason: the 5,000 U.S. cars arriving daily at "graveyards" will leave 6,500,000 onetime car owners earless a year hence, 8,000,000 others driving "junkers" (cars over 7½ years...
...goes on & on. But perhaps the most extraordinary thing of all about Detroit-at-war is the change in the industry's thinking about improvisation. As late as a year ago, many automen swore that not much more than 15% of their wonderful one-purpose tools could be used for anything but automobile production. This week's report cited one automaker who is now using more than 80% of his automotive tools and equipment for war production. For the industry as a whole, the big manufacturers have converted some 66⅔% of their automotive equipment, the smaller ones...
Kindelberger's blast made automen turn rage-red. WPB's auto chief, Ernie Kanzler, branded it "perfectly ridiculous." G.M.'s* Fisher Body division said that it has shipped a steady stream of sub-assemblies to North American for months. Murray Body is eleven weeks ahead of schedule on sub-assemblies for Douglas and Boeing. Cracked Chrysler Chief Kaufman Thuma Keller: "I think the auto industry will take care of itself." Big, burly Ford Production Boss Charles Sorensen remarked that automen had always looked upon the planemakers as "little custom tailors...