Crumbs

It is always good fun to compute the output of the Ford Motor Co., the centre of U. S. business romance. The Wall Street Journal from time to time publishes some crumbs of Ford information which its agents pick up in Detroit. That is where these statistics of Ford's year production came from, that the paper published last week:

1921 928,750

1922 1,232,209

1923 1,915,485

1924 1,790,278

1925 1,798,123

1926 1,447,915

The figures for 1926 are frankly based on the presumption that only 40,000 cars were made in December because the Ford plants worked but ten days during the month. In November the output was only 91,708 cars. However, had November and December production kept to the average of 131,620 cars for each of the first ten months of the year, even then the total would have been merely 1,579,448.

Whether a proper analysis or not, the 1926 situation gives one explanation for the offer the Ford Co. made its dealers last week. For $60 the company will put any 1925 model Ford, no matter what its condition, in first class running order. It will reupholster and repaint such a car, rebuild the motor, and then guarantee the whole job for three months. Thus a dealer can offer high value for a broken down 1925 Ford on a trade-in or he can sell remade cars at bargain prices.