AMERICAN CARS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 81, Issue 7253, 18 September 1950, Page 3

AMERICAN CARS

DEALERS AWAIT DECISIONS MUCH CAPITAL AT STAKE As a decision not to allow the importation of certain American Cars might mean their withdrawal from business, car dealers in the Waikato and King Country, as elsewhere in the Dominion, are keenly awaiting the decision of the Government import committee, which sat through last week, trying to finalise car imports. 1 Representations have been made to the committee on behalf of dealers handling a specific make of American ear not now being imported. It was stated that the Government should give a portion of its dollar- purchases to dealers who, because of the restriction on dollar funds, had no new cars for sale and no business. Many firms which imported American cars have been able to transfer their licenses to impoit English-made cars from the same industrial concern. There are, however, some dealers who have no alternative English cars to import. Entitled To Consideration It was stated by a dealer in Hamilton that these dealers along with any other members of the community, were entitled to consideration. They had large staffs to maintain in employment, but they had no cars to handle. The dealers wanting the specific car also represented about £750,000 in New Zealand investments. A deputation to the committee asked that as the Government was making certain dollar purchases, dealers in the predicament of having no new cars coming forward be granted a share of the dollar purchases to import the car, models of which had been on the New Zealand market since 1916, with the exception of the last war years and 1950. That there is still an unsatisfied demand for cars was pointed out by several Hamilton dealers. One mentioned a list of over 450 waiting as long as three years, and there had been more cars coming forward in 1947 than in all of 1950. Sterling Funds Other factors pointed out by distributors were the questions of sterling funds in England, the capacity of English factories to produce cars for the New Zealand market and the capacity of plants in New Zealand to assemble them. Along with distributors who were getting no American cars at all, they also were waiting the results of the import committee’s deliberations with interest.