Presidents at Wiesbaden

Forecast last November (TIME, Nov. 26), vigorously denied ever since, the sale of Germany's Opel Motor Works to General Motors last week became a fact. As in many a domestic merger, the emphasis given denials forecast a deal of large proportions. Thus, last week, no less than three presidents journeyed to Wiesbaden* to sign the contract. They were: the President of General Motors Corp. (Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr.); the President of General Motors Export Co. (James David Mooney); the President of Fisher Bodies Corp. (Frederick J. Fisher), chief of the seven money-minting Fisher brothers.

Immediate subjects of presidential talk en route to Wiesbaden were, of course, the mechanics of the Opel-G. M. deal. Every German motorcar maker knows that Opel's cheap ($650) standardized car last year controlled exactly half the German market (45,000 cars out of 90,000 total production). Yet G. M. executives, pondering Chevrolet's enormous success in the U.S., talked of scrapping the Opel, offering Germans a still cheaper car. Perhaps it might be the Chevrolet itself. Perhaps it might be a new make, lighter, with only 5 h. p., to sell at 1,800 marks ($432).

Whatever the means, each and every itinerant President knew the end that great G.M. has in view. While the battle of Fords and Chevrolets begins again at home, Ford has flung down a challenge for European markets as well. Sir Percival Perry, English Ford generalissimo, opened hostilities when he offered especially to English investors shares of the $34,020,000 Ford Motor Co., Ltd. Similar offerings are being made by Ford companies on the Continent. But Great Britain & Ireland are now Ford's key sectors; his Manchester, Cork and Dagenham (capacity 200,000 cars annually; unfinished) plants are the most important overseas units; and Ford Motor Co., Ltd., is the greatest of the associated companies abroad.

This is a war of cheap cars, Ford v. Chevrolet. There is a surprising dearth of such cars on the Continent. Citroen, leading continental mass-producer, cannot turn out a car that will undersell the Ford in France, though Fords cost 25,700 francs ($1,008), about double the American price. The cheapest Chevrolet model sells for 30,400 francs ($1,191). France's 45% ad valorem duty largely accounts for these prices. Even with this duty, it is estimated that General Motors' projected cheap car for the Opel Works could be sold in France at about 16,000 francs ($627). Thus the Opel-General Motors deal seriously threatens Ford in the French, as well as German, markets.

*Oldtime watering place famed for gout and gambling.