Ford Risks All

Henry Ford received the Press last week and strolled with it through Ford Motor Co.'s Dearborn laboratory. In a corner of the room they slipped behind a screen. Said Mr. Ford, grinning eagerly: "They're apt to get mad at me for coming in here."

"In here" was a large room on whose floor were six new cars. Motormaker Ford pointed at them proud as could be, while the Press took notes. Soon the country knew some things it has been waiting weeks to learn. The new Fords will be entirely different from old models, will be long, low and wide. They will be streamlined, with slanting windshields, V-shaped radiators with rounded crowns the same color as the bodies. They will have freewheeling, larger wheels, heavier tires, bigger hubcaps. The ignition key will be on the steering post, gasoline tank in the rear.

Boasted Mr. Ford: "They will get up to 80 miles and are built to run at 65 and 70 miles which is fast enough for any car. The gas consumption of the eight is approximately the same as that for the four."

Asked whether the new cars would be sold on a two-year plan as first reported (TIME, Feb. 29), Mr. Ford answered: "The best way to buy an automobile is to pay cash. I don't see that the standard instalment plan which we use [one-year] needs to be modified."

Advance orders, said Mr. Ford, were at 83,560 last week of which 75% were for the eight. He did not say when these orders would be filled but stated production would "probably begin next week" and "before very long we expect to be making 5,000 to 6,000 cars a day." He said the cars would be ready now except that some ardent workers had worked on Sunday and the rest of the following week had been spent correcting their errors.

Not lacking in drama were the Ford movements last week. With a sensationalism he has not attempted since he upped wages when everybody else was reluctantly promising to maintain them (TIME, Dec. 2, 1929), he declared he was "prepared to risk everything we've got. . . . We have nothing the public did not give us. No surplus exists for private benefit; every surplus is provided for future use. The future is here now and we are going to do our utmost--to risk everything if necessary to see if we cannot make what the country needs most--jobs. We're going to risk everything we've got to create useful work for just as many people as possible."

Part of the roster of Ford "risks" will include: $198,000,000 for wages (70,000 men are working at present in the Dearborn factory); orders to 5,200 firms for such items as $47,000,000 worth of steel, $48,000,000 worth of body-trimming material, $20,006,000 worth of tires, $10,000,000 worth of glass, $4,800,000 worth of paint and lacquer, $4,600,000 worth of grey iron, $4,000,000 worth of lumber. The Ford production will benefit transportation companies by some $100,000,000 to pay for freight carried by 236,000 inbound and 228,000 outbound cars.

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