Chrysler’s Sideshow

The Chrysler Corporation gave the U.S. its first good look last week at its defense effort which is tremendous.

Every August newspapermen are invited to Detroit for a preview of Chrysler’s new models (see p. 57). This year the preview was mostly tanks, bomber fuselages, anti-aircraft guns, Army trucks. When, at the end of a six-hour tour of defense production, a Chrysler official sarcastically suggested that the newspapermen might also want to see the new cars, a wag said: “Yeah, we might as well have a look at the by-product.”

Knee-deep in its $400,000,000 worth of war orders, Chrysler should be in all the way by February. Then M-3 medium tanks should be rolling off 15 a day (against 5 a day now); then the assembling of Martin B-26 medium bomber fuselages should be started; then Bofors 40-mm. anti-aircraft guns should be in production. Already Chrysler’s engineering department and laboratories are working 85% of their time on defense, developing a 2,000 h.p. airplane engine, a 500 h.p. liquid-cooled tank engine; a new airplane landing gear strut, etc. Half the 900 machine tools used to make the Bofors gun are being taken from the automobile assembly lines. Eleven different Chrysler divisions are supplying parts for the bombers. The 250 Army trucks that come off Dodge production lines every day represent better than half the total daily production of Dodge trucks.

Planes. Last October Chrysler leased 600,000 square feet of the old Graham-Paige plant, in anticipation of a bomber parts contract which came through eight months later. Right now this building has nothing to offer but clean floors, a fresh coat of paint, a few piles of aluminum sheeting and some planning boards, but here eventually the 11,500 parts that make up the nose and center fuselage sections of the Martin bomber will be assembled, production-line fashion (there are 2,500 parts in the Plymouth sedan body). Goodyear is making the wings of this ship, Hudson the tail section, all for assembly in Omaha.

Tanks. Obvious pet of Chrysler officials is the Chrysler Tank Arsenal (TIME, Jan. 20). They like to cite statistics on its vastness: five city blocks long and two wide . . . six and a half acres of window panes . . . 9,000 heavy machines, tools and fixtures installed . . . “here, just a year ago, stood a corn field.” . . . Last week it was a whirring, clanking hive of millers, cutters, pressers and riveters (see cut). Eighty percent of the machines which Chrysler needs to step up its tank-production rate to 15 per day have already been installed. Meanwhile Chrysler has just received a big order for a new medium tank of later design, and in order to get tanks rolling fast and steadily has gone right ahead with the earlier type while tooling for the new one.

Trucks. Chrysler’s Army Truck Proving Ground adjoins the new Dodge Truck plant on Detroit’s Mound Road. Of the 79,000 trucks which the Army is getting from Chrysler, 55,000 have been delivered. All four-wheel drives, they range from half-ton command cars (two-seaters with a canvas top and a snub-nose hood) to one-and-a-half-ton “cargo motor transports” (plain, everyday small-size trucks). For the benefit of the visitors barrel-bellied “Frenchy” Raes, chief test driver for Dodge, gave one of the little command cars and a truck the works. Frenchy’s working outfit was a white shirt, bow tie, suspenders, gray trousers, and a long cigar. The works consisted of darting up and down a 45% grade, growling through a fifty-yard stretch of gumbo mud that lay fender deep in a six-foot gully, then bouncing up the sides of the gully and tearing through a quarter-mile of heavy underbrush. Not even Frenchy showed signs of wear & tear.

Guns. Last stop of the inspection was the Highland Park Gun Barrel Arsenal where the company is tooling up to make barrels, water jackets and sights for a 40-mm. Bofors anti-aircraft gun. Eight other Chrysler plants are also working on the 500 parts it requires. A Navy officer on hand for last week’s show called the gun “the finest thing of its type in the world.” Chrysler’s President K. T. Keller said the guns should be in production by February, didn’t say in what amount.

After the defense show was over, Chrysler’s guests had about 15 minutes left to look at Chrysler’s 1942 cars.