MOTOR NOTES. CHEAPER CARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 143, 18 June 1940, Page 14

MOTOR NOTES. CHEAPER CARS.

U.S. OPINIONS. "FIELD NOT SATURATED." \ MEN AND MACHINES. Motor vehicles play such an important part in the life of a large percentage of New Zealand people, that the beliefs and intentions of the world's 'leading motor manufacturers are of particular interest, says the "Dunlop Bulletin." Giving evidence recently before the U.S.A. National Economic Committee, Sir. Eclsel Ford, president of the Ford Motor Company, stated that ihis organisation could sell a good car for 500 dollars (normally £100) if it could see a market for 1,000,000 cars a year, but such an innovation would have a very drastic effect on the used car market. He stated that "there is always a field down below. Everyone in the world wants to buy a motor car. The price of our automobile has gone up to-day, but it is a better ear, 'because the people apparently want more power and more room and we give it to them. ''The man who formerly pttrdiased the Model £ T' (of which 15,000,000 were eold throughout the world), to-day depends U{K>n used cars, and this, to a large extent, lias created the used car market. We hope, some day, to produce a car in the former low-prided field, but with greater power. The low -priced field is not saturated. "Three million men are normally employed in America in making, selling and serving cars bccause, with machinery, cars can be produced at priccs people can pay. That, in turn, creates jobs at wages which enable people to buy. The ears, the jobs, the wages would not 'be there were it not for machinery." Continuing, Mr. Ford said: "The cost of an automobile now selling in U.S.A. for about 700 dollars (normalfy about £140) would be more than 17,000 dollars ( £3400) if manufactured by hand labour instead of by huge laboursaving machines. Manufacturing costs are constantly cut by taking certain men off certain work because better machines have made those men unnecessary on those particular jobs; the cutting of costs enables the company to put more in the car, and it takes more men to put it there." In support of this, he cited one instance where a capital expenditure of 880,000 dollars on a new type of cylinder liner, had taken 12 off the former type of cylinder work, but added 500 men to the work of manufacture and installation. "Last year," Mr. Ford "the company spent about 36,000,000 dollars for new and improved machinery, together with necessary 'buildings." In this latter connection, it is of interest to mention that in U.S.A., General Motors in 193& spent 37,000,000 dollars ™<;™£w? r !? <^ iner 7 and e( l ui P me "t and o8,a(J0,000 dollars for special tools needed for the manufacture of their 1940 models. Giving evidence before the same national committee, Mr. C. F. Kettering, vice-president and research head of General Motors, stated that "mass production of ideas will make this decade one of swaft progress in the automotive industry." . one P er cent of the research projects now occupying experts in fuel, metete, rubber and plastios are successful thousands of new jobs will be v T ? T el>ly to q««stions, the Creneral Motors research chief told the committee the chief research problem in the automotive industry to-dav is grorter