CAR OUTPUT LAGS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22512, 16 December 1947, Page 8

CAR OUTPUT LAGS

AMERICAN INDUSTRY DOGGED BY SHORTAGES NEW YORK, Dec. 1. If America’s car industry maintains its present production level it will finish the year with a total outpout of 3,500,000 passenger and 1,226,000 commercial vehicles —figures considerably below what the industry expected in the second post-war year. At the beginning of this year there were many predictions that total output would reach 5,000,000 passenger cars. It was then expected that shortages of materials would disappear after the beginning of July, and that cars would start rolling from assembly lines at record rates. These predictions have not been realised. Material shortages have dogged manufacturers through the third quarter of the year, and well into the final weeks. . Only recently has output attained anything like the level needed for top assembly operations. Huge Backlog

It is now forecast that even if capacity production can be attained year, back-log orders are so great that it will probably be impossible for manufacturers to meet the demand.

The industry has put its back-log at more than 5,000,000 cars ever since peace-time production resumed on July 1, 1945. It is estimated that new orders have been coming in since then at a rate practically equal to the production of new cars.

In some cases it is claimed that it will be anything up to five years before the public will be able to get immediate delivery' of new cars.