Evening star., 1932-05-01
INDUSTRY TO FIGHT
SLUGGISH BUSINESS
Automobile Leaders Assem-
BILE to Draw Up War
Front.
Special Dispatch To The Star

Special Dispatch to The Star.
DETROIT, April 30.-Leaders of the
automobile industry's sales forces as
Sembled here this week to talk over
ways and means of maintaining a war
'front.' against sluggish business condi-
tionS.
The sales end of automobile manu-
featuring is confronted by a situation
that has been described as being "sicker
than its ever been since its start !"
What That means may be gathered
from comparisons with 1881, during
whlch a continuous battle was waged.
Far Below Normal.
present manufacturing volume is ap-
proxlmately 90 per cent of normal. The
volume Of all plants is in round figures
4u'oo0 cars weekly, as against 5000
during the same period one year ago.
This represents the extent to which
controlled output is being enforced. and
against which the distribution end is
training its big guns. Reports made
10 the sales divisions represented at the
conference, periodical one convened
py the National Automobile Chamber
OF commerce, pointed to still greater
comoatlVe efforts. They told of i'm
proved selling as a result of the sales
broadsides that have been delivered in
recent weeks. April returns to date
nave shown business somewhat better
IN the East, with noticeable increase
general during the last 80 days.
AS a measure of relief for the retail
end, the sales executives discussed the
growing compleXity of too many mod
els and options that are felt to be
complicating production and perplexing
the dealer group which finds difficulty
IN stocking complete lines of cars as
they are now built.
AT the session, r. H Grant, vice
president of General Motors. acted as
chairman. Alfred Reeves. vice presi-
dent and general manager of the Ma
tlonal Automobile Chamber, was pres
ent. Companies represented were Nash,
Chrysler, Hudson. WHY'S Overland,
Studebaker, Packard, Hupmobile, REQ.
Graham-Paige and Buick -Olds-P Pontiac.
Alfred Reeves, in addition to his
duties as executive head of the N. A.
G. C.. is to take over direction of the
national automobile shows. succeeding
the late Samuel A. Miles who acted as
manager for more than three decades.
12Cylinder Group.
Among changes that the automobile
year have brought about is the forma-
ton Of a substantial group of 12-cylin-
der cars This multi-poWered division
now takes in five makes. All have
V-type engines. Cadillac was first in
the field last year. 1t was followed by
Lincoln. then by Pierce-ArroW, which
has two different power plants of this
type. Then came Packard with its re-
vival of the twin 6" and now Franklin.
with its Viz.
This lineup puts a. different COM
plexion on the customs built group. Col
lectively these cars have a horsepower
range from 1875 to $50 The wheel bases
extend from l40 to 148 inches, with
the price spread" from $4,000 to $4400
and upward for the production models.
The customs built types go still higher
and reach toward $4,000 and $4,000 ac-
cording to fitments for luxury
John N. WHY'S has quit his job as
U. S. Ambassador to Poland, and has
re-entered automobile offlcialdom. He
has elected to resume an active WHY'S
Overland connection, which he relin-
pushed in 1929 to go abroad for the
Government, although he retained his
title as chairman OF the Toledo plant
board of directors
(Copyright 1882 by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, 1nc)