How Many Cars?

The Detroit dream of a roaring postwar market got confirmation in a Chevrolet survey last week. It revealed that by the midpart of next year: 1) 6,500,000 prewar car owners will be earless due to sales & junkings; 2) 9,500,000 will be limping along in antiquated autos worth less than $100 each.

Chevrolet thus placed the immediate postwar demand at 16,000,000 cars, more than half of the prewar U.S. total. (Best prewar year: 4,795,000 cars, 1929.) Added to this will be a demand for 1,000,000 trucks from onetime truckers now forced to get along without them. To buy the cars and trucks, Chevrolet estimated that the well-heeled U.S. civilian will have $100,000,000,000 in savings. All this looked too good to be true, even to Chevie's top-optimist, Sales Manager William E. Holler. Said he: "It is perhaps wise to dis count somewhat the conclusions which the figures appear to warrant."

In a Detroit exhibit, auto designers had an imaginative picnic displaying postwar "dream cars." Dreamiest of the lot was a design by free-lance artist Ray Russell (see cut) who described the features: "Drive across Texas at 100 miles an hour . . . the tail fin to line her up at this speed. Plug in the two-way radio to order your dinner ahead. ... For a short cut across a river ... the Amphibian is at home on the water. . . . Navigation lights are for cruising on a Venetian night. The four-wheel drive shifts to propellers. . . . The air-cooled motor in the rear operates air conditioning and heating." But dream-car talk usually starts production-minded auto men to shattering their glass-topped desks. They have patiently explained that the first postwar cars will be 1942 models, that dream cars may not come until five or ten years later. But designers, unperturbed, like to keep their dreams at least ten years ahead.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.