The Indianapolis times., 1935-12-13
POWER, WEIGHT
COST OF AUTOS
DROPS SHARPLY
But Industry Is Vastly
UnderbuiIt, Writer
Reveals.
(This is the second of three articles on
the auto industry)
BY JOHN w. LOVE
Times Special Writer

hard for me to see why the auto
mobile industry as it now stands
| could never turn out as many cars
as it used to. In other words, it was
hard to see why the motor industry
is underbuilt.
The automobile economist was pa
tient with me. Today's cars, he
said, are a little larger than they
were when the industry last pro-
duced 100000 units, and they are
much more complicated.
Modern cars can not be put
through the old factories in the
same numbers. The incubator built
for hens eggs must be rebuilt if it
is to handle goose eggs. More fac
| taries will have to be put up before
they can again Go what they did in
| 1929.
Length Increased 10 Per Cent
The increase in vehicle size is only
few inches, on the average wheel
base of the cars produced in great
volume, but even this small differ
ence is enough to call for more
space to handle parts and ma
terials. In 10 years the length has
increased 10 per cent.
The more important difference,
the expert explained, is in the ad-
ditional parts that go into the car
and the increased complication in
the manufacture. Cars today have
automatic starters, automatic chokes,
bllilt-in equipment for radios, more
elaborate instrument boards. Some
have steel tops and adjustable
windows with twice as much regu-
lating equipment. The number OF
parts in the car has increased by
25 per cent in 10 years.
Because factories these days are
built around their product, from the
inside out, and increase in the side
of the product or the work done upon
it calls for machinery of larger size
or more of it, or faster machinery,
more bins, more benches, more room
for men to stand or sit, and SO the
old plant becomes obsolete while it
is still to every outward view a per-
fectly sound building.
Unlimited Combinations Offered
Furthermore, my economist ex-
planned, today'S passenger cars are
less standardized in some respects
than ever before. Every departure
from standards takes space, if for
nothing more than to shelve can
of paint.
In some of the more expensive
cars the purchaser now has the
choice of about 100000 possible
combinations of mechanical equip
ment, color and fabrics.
We have returned to oldfash-
ioned individualism in our cars. The
days when Ford could offer any col
Or in a Model T, SO long as it was
black, have gone forever. The age
of standardization seems to be on
the decline. So the motor industry
is again underbuilt.
Weight Costs Decrease
Along with this increasing size
and complication of the modern au-
tomobile has gone steady cheap
ening by weight Ten years ago
the average high-priced car sold at
around dollar a pound. One or
two were $103, a couple of them
were exactly 81. Today the same
cars are selling for so, 10 and 80
cents pound,
So when DR.. Moulton of the
Brookings Institution calls upon i'll
dustry to keep lowering it's prices, or
when Secretary Wallace intimates
that manufacturing has not f1exed
its prices as agriculture has, the au-
tomobile people bring out their
tabulationS and show:
Weight-On the average of all
1885 cars (the average weighed by
volume of production), the cost
pound is now % cents, compared
with 80 cents in 1880, and al cents
| in 1925.
Power Expense Reduced
HorsepoWer-Each horsepower of
capacity in the 1885 cars costs on
the average $3.50 in the price of the
car dividing the price of the car
by its horsepower and averaging
the result for all cars), compared
with $3.50 in 1890 and $3.50 in
1925.
Putting 1t another way, power
capacity under the hood costs only
quarter as much as it did 10
years ago, This is partly because it
only takes "a pounds in the car to
each horsepower of motor capa-
city, against II pounds a decade
ago.
Along with this relative decline in
the price of the car by weight and
horsepower has gone the actual de-
cline. The average price of automo-
biles is about SO per cent of what
it was only five years ago.
Next-SaIeS and profits.
Local Securities