Word: cars
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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There were plenty of signs it would end sooner than expected. Said Henry Ford II: "A customer can usually get a high-priced car today without waiting." It might be a year and a half before cars become plentiful-but "then again it might be six months...
From its Washington sampling, the committee estimated that U.S. car buyers had been "mulcted" at an annual rate of $450 million in the first seven months of the year in low trade-ins, tips and doodad accessories. There was nothing illegal about the deals. But Committee Chairman W. Kingsland Macy trumpeted that the auto industry "must police its own backyard" or face mandatory price controls. To police the backyard, Ford had already fired 23 dealers for grey marketeering. Most carmakers, while holding their own prices far under true market values, had actively campaigned against it. This week General Motors notified...
Poor Sales. In Detroit, almost any car except Chevrolet, Plymouth and Ford could be bought right off showroom floors without trade-ins. DeSotos and Chryslers could be had with only a few dollars worth of extras (v. a postwar average of about $280 worth for all cars) while Packards could be bought "bare" (without accessories), a sign that the market was down. And across the U.S. used-car dealers were suffering their worst slump since...
...past six weeks and volume was down even more. Outside of the Big Three (which in some cases were still drawing premiums of $150 to $300), prices on 1948 models were well below list price. On Detroit's Livernois Avenue, capital of the used-car world, things got so bad that 20 dealers closed down. Dealers hoped for a revival next spring, but one said sadly: "The customer will never again pay more for a used car than for a new one. This time the honeymoon is really over...
Since all efforts to date have failed to obtain sanction for parking in the Eliot-Winthrop-Kirkland triangle and other areas, most car owners are forced to park in local garages...