Evening star., 1942-06-21
Auto Firms Foresee
Enormous Backlog
After War
Improved Teehniques
To Bring Rodicol
Changes in Designs
BY DAVID J. WILKIE,
wide World Automotive Editor.

WlCS WDIlu
DETROIT, June 20.-The greatest
production capacity and the most
highly developed manufacturing
techniques the world ever has known
will be among the things the war
will leave with the Nations auto
mobile industry when the conflict
ends.
How they may be used in the
postwar reconstruction period is a
thought that brings varying conjec-
lures from the one-time automobile
manufacturers.
Were going right back into the
production of 1912 model passenger
automobiles as quickly as we can
after the war" one Of them will as
sure his interviewer, adding that lit
will take from eight to 10 months to
do that.
The things we are learning in the
mass production of armament, util-
izing higher quality metals and
other materials, will make a 1912
model automobile so obsolete in
styling and design after the war
that the average American motorist
will feel like apologizing for owning
one" another car builder will assert
with equal earnestness.
Big Backlog Predicted.
From a third comes this state
ment:
Right now we are building up
the greatest backlog of demand we
ever have known for the things we
have been accustomed to-passenger
automobiles, refrigerators, stoves,
home furnishings and dozens of
other things. 1t is inconceivable
that industries like ours that got
into virtually 100 per cent war ac-
tivity in less than six months are
going to take eight to 10 months
after the war to start satisfying
some of that gigantic unsatisfied
demand"
To those who saw the car as
sembly plants being dismantled and
have had opportunity to inspect
them again some four months later,
the estimate of eight months for a
resumption of normal production
activity after the war seems a bit
exaggerated.
This writer's guess is that pas
senger automobiles will be rolling
off assembly lines on volume basis
within four months after the stop
orders go through on guns, shells,
aircraft engines and other imple-
ments of war now being made in the
former automotive plants.
Conversion Speed Cited.
The guess is based wholly upon
the speed with which the industry
converted its plants to the war pro-
duction job and the volume that has
been attained on an unfamiliar as
signment in the former automobile
assembly plants. All the "conver-
sion" of plant capacity that was
undertaken, of course, was done in
these factories.
But regardless of the varying
views of the former car manufac-
turers on postwar prospects lot
of materials that never before were
used in automobile construction will
go into the ultimate postwar We
hicle. One authoritative source sees
aluminium and steel fighting for
preference; another predicts wide
spread adaptation of plaStics in
body construction with impregnated
color; a third insists that the day
of the large and the high-speed
vihcle is past; he anticipates not
only a lightweight car, but one
powered with an engine mounted
in the rear.
The discussions in trade circles
about postwar possibilities in car
design include only scant sugges-
tions that a renewed effort might
be made to introduce a passenger
vehicle with a Diesel-type engine
Instead, say most of the crystal
gazers. all the refinements in gaso-
line that have been developed for
aircraft engines will be passed on
to the motoring public.