Business: Debut of the Big Three

Into the nation’s auto showrooms this week rolled the Big Three’s lowest-priced cars for 1959. The emphasis was on a wide choice of new engines and economy features to balance higher selling prices. The restyled Chevrolet led the way with a new six-cylinder engine that “gives up to 10% more mileage,” also offered eight other engines ranging up to 315 h.p. Plymouth offered four engines from 132 h.p. to 305 h.p., had a new gas-saving carburetor and new rear-axle-gear ratio, which it said “contribute to 10% greater economy of operation.” Ford came out with four engines ranging from 145 h.p. to 300 h.p., said its lowest-powered, six-cylinder model will get better than 20 miles per gal.

Studebaker-Packard last week showed the press its 175-in.-long economy Lark, which gets 22 to 30 miles per gal. Studebaker said the six-cylinder, 90-h.p. models will be priced “below $2,000,” but there will be higher-priced models with an op—tional V8, 180-h.p. engine. More than 25,000 orders have poured in to Studebaker, which produced only 44,056 cars during the ’58 model year.

Ordering moved so briskly for American Motors’ Rambler (72,566 firm orders from dealers v. 35,607 at the same time in 1957) that President George Romney again boosted his sales predictions—from 252,000 to 300,000. He advertised the 100-in. wheel base Rambler American for a factory list price of $1,835.

Dealers reported that demand for other models was racing far ahead of last year. But buyers found that a little haggling still goes a long way. Dealers were shaving about $200 to $300 off suggested list prices of most cars, with or without trade-ins. When pressed, dealers commonly offered discounts of $500 to $700 on cars listing at $3,500 or more with extras. Only the Cadillac dealers refused to bargain, figured that their luxury market will run high and fast without discounts.

Dealers still had a tough time finding enough cars to sell. Local strikes idled General Motors workers. Most of Plymouth’s production was shut down. Among the Big Three, only Ford rolled in full production. Chevrolet announced that it had enough dealer orders to produce full speed for 60 to 90 days. But strikebound Chevy had produced only 14,800 of the ‘593 for its 7,500 dealers.