MOTOR-CAR INDUSTRY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6672, 27 July 1928, Page 4

MOTOR-CAR INDUSTRY

ACTIVITY IN UNITED STATES. . Competition in tho manufacture of motor-cars in tho United States is becoming intensely keen and there is a tendency for some of tho larger companies to anmlgamate, according to far Innes Randolph, manager far General Motors, Ltd., in Australia, who was a passenger from New York hy the Port Bowen yesterday. Mr, Randolph has been on a business visit to the United States. “The second-hand-car problem is a very serious one in the United States to-day/ said Mr Randolph. “People in Australia and New Zealand can have no idea of what it could be. There are second-hand ears in their thousands all over the country. Working-class people are buying many of them, and consequently an unusually large proportion of workers own their own cars. Outside one factory I sow 2,000 cars parked. Tho factory had 3000 employees, so that over 60 per cent of tho employees had cars.” Mr Randolph added that it was a common thing for two or three families to combine their resources and purchase a second-hand car, and they took turns in using it during week-ends. Dealing with Australia and New Zealand, Mr Randolph said these countries were greatly valued as export fields by motor-ear manufacturers in tho United States. “Perhaps it is not generally known,” he added, “that these two countries absorb 20 per cent of the total motor-car export trade of the United States.” d