Parts And Accessory Plants Grow

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14928, 16 March 1949, Page 4

Parts And Accessory Plants Grow

Great increase In United States

Over a thousand parts and accessory manufacturers are the backbone of the American automobile industry. Their specilisation means better parts and lower cost to the automobile manufacturers.

They are located in 45 of the 48 states, and many of them supply the same parts to several different vehicle factories. That all parts fit is a tribute to accuracy in production. Nor is it any secret to report that many an important automobile mechanism was originated by a parts supplier, developed, tested and sold to car or truck company for inclusion in the finished automobile.

Some of the parts companies are larger than the automobile manufacturers they supply, but many others are small business, with only a few hundred employees. Their aggregate sales volume is huge. Replacement parts and accessory sales alone are big business, topping two billion dollars at current rates, almost seven times as much as ten year ago. Exports of these same products too. are very large, about 330,000,000 dollars in 1947, running not far behind in 1948, about a

quarter of all automotive exports