Producers Passed through Very Lean Period First Seven Months of Year Just one year ago, the American automobile industry was heralding the introduction of its 1938 models with the confident assertion that a record year was well in sight. The industry had survived an especially troubled first quarter in which the newly-won strength of the C.LO. organizations was largely concentrated in the motor factories; and over the first six months, car output was more than 2,900000 units. Thus, although severe labour disputes, together with a sharp rise in raw material costs, had seriously disturbed the price structure, there was every ground for reasonable hope. The serious flaws which were developing in the general industrial position were not then apparent: almost every motor trade official confidently held that increased prices for new models were all that was needed to restore prosperity states "The Financial News" But the deterioration which occurred in the later months of the year is now common knowledge.
Production for the whole of 1937 was actually little more than 5,000,000 units, compared with 4,600,000 units in 1936, and with a peak of 5,600,000 in 1929. Even on that basis, output was so largely in excess of demand that dealers were heavily loaded with stocks throughout the winter. But if 1937 brought disappointment of the earlier hopes, the new year brought actual despondency. January output was 57 per cent. of the 1937 level; February, 53 per cent; March, 46 per cent; and April 43 per cent. The normal spring increase in consumer demand was wholly absent, and the special efforts made to reduce inventories were thus foredoomed to failure.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.