AMERICAN CARS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30230, 7 September 1963, Page 8

AMERICAN CARS

Production Record

SIDNEY WEILAND]

[By

DETROIT.

Nearly twice as many cars roiled off the assembly lines this year as the number of new babies born in the entire United States. This is the one vital statistic which convinces United States car manufacturers that 1963 will prove the industry's alltime boom year, breaking even the 1955 records. And, according to all predictions, the boom will continue—into the 1980’s. But the statistical ratio between new cars and new babies will eventually level out Because the birth rate is moving ahead even faster than the Detroit factories, there will soon be only one new car for each new baby, the 1963 car production record is expected to be 7,340,000 units—2lo,ooo more than 1955. The total of new 1963 cars reached 7,140.000 last month, with about three weeks to go before the assembly lines closed on this year’s run. The forecast of births for 1963 is 4,167,000. Americans are buying more oars than ever before because pay packets are getting bigger, because more and more people are moving to the suburbs.

When families move to the suburbs or into the countryside, they tend to buy two cars, one tor the husband to take to work, the other for the wife to take the children to school and for shopping. In Los Angeles, there are already more cars than families. More than 11,000,000 American families now own more than one car. More than 750,000 families own three cars.