The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-02-19

pendent on this rubber situation.
OF the 275 million cars on the
road today, says the American Auto
mobile Association, rs million were
new cars placed in operation in
1904 and therefore with tires
good for another year. In this same
period, there were replacement sales
OF 30 million tires, enough for the
other 20 million cars. This sale of
10 million replacement tires was,
however, exceedingly heavy = more
! than twice the normal sale of IS
! million replacement tires per year.
Ihls can mean only that a lot of
car owners have rubber in reserve.
No one knows who or how many
| or where.
The only known factor is that at
the time rationing went into effect,
! there we're between seven and eight
million tires in the hands of deal
ers and it is this visible though
frozen supply which must keep the
| armed services and the essential
civilian services going while the
shortage lasts. Adding up these fac
tors, consider what can happen,
DETERIORATION A FACTOR
If all these replacement tires held
by private owners are boarded for
their own use, the country may ride
longer than most of the statisti-
clans figured. That is, if the tires
aren't held in reserve so long the
rubber deteriorates, which improp-
erly stored rubber will do.
If this boarded rubber finds Its
way into the hands Of bootleg tire
dealers, watch out for all the evils
of prohibition days including hi
lacking, tire speakeasies, bribery,
gangsterlsm - anything and every
thing to beat legitimate tire ration
ing. Some tire bootlegging is al
ready going on. In a few metro
| politan centers the competition be-
tween bootleg dealers is so keen
the price has actually been driven
down. Castings that normally sold
for $18 are going for SIS.
The potentialities for a petty
crime wave in this situation are
| fairly obvious. Police reports indi-
cate an increase in tire thievery
! and the hot tire market is BOOM
! ing. Then, the fact that legitimate
| tire rationing is TO function through
5000 local tire rationing boards
gives an indication of how much
pressure the q million car owners
will try to exert in order to get
permit to buy new rubber for their
| particular car and never mind
about the car owner next door, or
the Army, or lease-1end or Latin
/ America.
RETREADS CONTROLLED
Solution to many of the problems
of keeping the cars rolling will of
course come through retreading,
| which is now under price control
and which must be rationed just
as stringently as new tires. A new
tire takes Ia pounds Of raw rub
Der, Comeback" or retread fab
ric, S, making good saving when
you consider that a retreaded tire
! gives 80 per cent additional mileage
at half new tire cost.
Before the war, tire makers nat
urally discouraged retreading
| though truck and bus owners re-
treaded extensively, and in 1871 an
estimated seven million tires were
retreaded. Ten million tires might
be retreaded this year in the 1000
shops equipped with retreading
mods, and maximum of 80 mil
lion retreads a year might be
achieved in time. There is an in
dustry scrap on, however, between
manufacturers and independent re-
treading shops as to how camel
back shall be equitably rationed.
| Eventually it will have to be ra-
| toned and so will the mods and
the customers privileged to have
retread. Policing all this ration
ing is still another problem.
From this brief outline, any car
owner can see what he is up against
in keeping his old bus in service
during the war. To say that this
rubber situation is confused puts
it mildly, without going into the
whirligig of where raw rubber sup
plies are to come from If the Dutch
East Indies are cut off and how
much can be had from Latin Amer
| lea, synthetic plants and guayule.