Word: compacter
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...since Henry Ford put the nation on wheels with his model T has such a great and sweeping change hit the auto industry. Out from Detroit and into 7,200 Chevrolet showrooms this week rolled the radically designed Corvair, first of the Big Three's new generation of compact cars. Smaller and simpler than Detroit's chromespun standards, the Corvair is like no other model ever mass-produced in the U.S.; its engine is made of aluminum and cooled by air, and it is mounted in the rear. To Chevrolet's folksy, brilliant General Manager Edward...
...Most Interesting Year." The other Detroit compact cars are also firing up great expectations in the marketplace. Next week Ford, rushing up its introduction by two months to catch Corvair, brings out its front-engine Falcon. Late this month Chrysler, advancing its debut from February 1960, bows with its front-engine Valiant...
This is just a prelude. Next spring Ford will roll out a compact Edsel called Comet. In a year Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac will come in both compact and regular sizes. All told, Detroit is betting $700 million on these cars-about $150 million on the Corvair, $100 million each for Falcon and Valiant, $350 million for the "bigger" compacts. How well this huge gamble pays off will affect not only Detroit, but automakers and buyers round the world. Says West Germany's Heinz Nordhoff, president of Volkswagen, with some understatement: "1960 will be the most interesting year...
Chevy's Ed Cole predicts that the 1960 compact cars will ring up 1,100,000 sales, lead the industry to within a bumper's reach of a 7,000,000-car year, the second biggest (first: 1955) in U.S. history. "A market of this size," says Cole, "should see sales of 300,000 Corvairs, 250,000 Falcons, 150,000 Valiants, 400,000 Studebaker Larks and American Ramblers, not counting bigger Rambler Ambassadors...
Hopefully, Ed Cole says: "The bulk of compact-car sales will probably come from an expansion of the market." But he is well aware that the compacts are bound to cut into sales of existing models. "If our Corvair moves some other cars off the road, well, that's too bad. But any time we bring out something that gets the focus of attention, it helps business. Anything that stimulates interest in autos is bound to stimulate the economy...