MANUFACTURING: 1940 Models

When U. S. auto production started down hill last spring there was a steep and slippery grade ahead. With all four wheels locked, the industry slithered down from a top weekly production of 90,280 (at the end of March) and skidded to a dismal pace of 32,445 (during the first week in May). Instead of crashing at the bottom, the motor industry stepped on the throttle, succeeded in topping an unexpected rise to 81,070 a week by the end of June.

Since then auto production has gone down a smooth grade to the late summer valley where the industry will change to its 1940 production models. Impatient for the next rise, the industry set the New York automobile show, which officially opens the 1940 model year, to begin October 15, earlier than ever before. But even this did not satisfy the impatience of motormakers to get the fall selling season started.

Last week the first of the 1940 models had their previews. First to be shown were new Packards, priced $120 to $400 under ’39 models. Next day Hudson showed its new line, including a low-priced six, a new, more powerful eight. Nash and Willys-Overland followed. Chrysler will show its new cars next week. Ford, General Motors and Studebaker all expected to show their new lines well before the New York show.

Although only Packard had announced its prices at last week’s end, price cuts below 1938’s levels were likely to be made in other lines. Last spring, when the steel industry was bogged down in a soggy market (TIME, May 8), it pulled its production rate out of the bog by making concessions to hard-boiled motormakers’ buyers: an average of about $6 a ton below published price lists. The steel industry, more worried about production than prices at the time, also guaranteed its concessions to the end of this year. By piling up a big inventory of steel before this year’s end, U. S. motormakers can well afford to sell at lowered prices well into 1940.