Word: automen
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...says Richard G. Macadam, design vice president for Chrysler, echoing a lament made by many U.S. automen. The 1979 models that are now popping up in showrooms are geared as much to beating a legal deadline as they are to cruising smoothly down an Interstate. Congress has said Detroit must increase the average fuel-efficiency of its cars in steps to 27.5 m.p.g. by 1985, and for the model-year that is just beginning the requirement inches up to 19 m.p.g...
Chrysler Corp. Chairman John Riccardo boasts that 25 years from now, when automen look back on 1978, they will remember it as the year in which his company introduced the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon. The cars (or car -they are identical except for trim) are the first subcompacts to be made in the U.S. with front-wheel drive, and are supposedly the forerunners of a new generation of gas-stingy little autos that are surprisingly roomy inside and handle well. Early results seemed to justify Chrysler's optimism. Motor Trend, a magazine for auto buffs, named the Omni...
Most other automen scoffed, but Murphy's optimism is being borne out. Sales of U.S. and foreign cars jumped 6% in May, to a 12.2 million annual rate, and trucks advanced 19%, to 4.3 million. That hot pace will not continue when the industry shuts down for model changeovers this summer, but total sales of more than 15 million now seem probable...
...figures can be cause for smiles or scowls, but right now they seem to be causing neither to any great extent. True, new-car sales were down during the Jan. 1-10 period, v. the same period a year ago-the sixth consecutive decline. But neither Detroit's automen nor Wall Street analysts seem particularly worried. As Dick Barrett, a Cadillac dealer in Youngstown, Ohio says, "I don't see a big increase, but 1977 was a very good year, and without any increase we'll still have a good year...
...sold in 1977, and even ahead of the record 11.4 million cars sold in 1973. Most other auto executives' predictions are in Murphy's ballpark, though not quite so far up in the bleachers. Even industry analysts on Wall Street, who are generally less optimistic than the automen, see a good if not great year ahead, with sales well above 10 million vehicles...