CAR PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1942, Page 4

CAR PRODUCTION

MANUFACTURE TO CEASE IN U.S.A. MAGNITUDE OF DECISION. The industrial magnitude of the decision to stop civilian car production in the United States can be gauged from the fact that annual production of this type of vehicle in the United States exceeds 3,000,000 completed cars. The value 'of the complete passenger cars and business vehicles, produced is well over £600,000,000 annually; of chassis, £27,000,000; of bodies, parts and accessories, £470,000,000; and of tyres and tubes, £116,000,000. The fac» tories employ more than 400,000, and wages paid total over £200,000,000. It is to be expected that the purpose of the step which has been taken is to divert all this effort into production of defence transport and weapons. For its rubber the United States is dependent upon imports, the world production being concentrated mainly in British Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies.

Although smaller in character than that in the United States, the Canadian automobile industry has shown rapid expansion in recent years and has already made increasing contribution to the war effort in the production of tanks and other defence vehicles. The number of cars, lorries, omnibuses and tractors produced in Canada before the war started was over 200,000, compared with more than 5,000,000 in the United States.