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On both sides of the Atlantic, the automotive world felt that old October feeling. In Paris it was auto show month, the second since the war. In the U.S. the latest of the 1949 models (Cadillac and Nash) rolled off the production lines.

Frenchmen's Progress. France had progress to report in motorcar building. Production had already caught up with the prewar levels (in April and June it shot up to 106% of the prewar rate, fell below it in July and August because of workers' vacations). In 1948's first half, the French industry had exported 57% of its total passenger-car production and 14% of all commercial cars, to ring up a whopping $144 million in foreign sales. In September, France's nationalized Renault plant had more U.S. orders (3,200) than it could fill (it shipped 1,500), hoped to catch up by next April, when its output (now 150 cars a day) should hit 300. Peugeot, privately owned, is now exporting 50 cars a month of its $1,595 "202" model.

Last week, at Paris' 35th automobile "salon," in the huge, ugly Grand Palais, Renault, Citroen, Peugeot, Simca and Ford (of France) trotted out their latest models to compete for attention with exhibits from U.S., British, Italian and Czech motormakers. Some of the tiny French cars looked lost among the Lincolns and Cadillacs, the British Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, the Italian Alfa Romeos and Isotta-Fraschinis. But France had a luxury car of her own in Saoutchik's elegant, hand-built models: the light grey Delahaye, whose front fenders are bisected by mirrorlike wedges of gleaming chrome (price: about $17,000 in France); the white-upholstered Talbot-Lago. Saoutchik had orders for six cars from the U.S.

Nevertheless, it was the cheap ($700 f.o.b. France), amazingly efficient new Citroen that stole the Paris show. Features: a two-cylinder, air-cooled engine, that is said to get more than 60 miles to the gallon (at an average speed of 38 m.p.h.); front-wheel drive, all-round torsion-bar suspension, a fabric top that rolls up like a windowshade. Perhaps the strangest-looking car at the Paris show was the Dyna-Panhard's "Dynavia" whose ultra-Studebakerish use of glass gave it the air of an airplane cockpit (its two-cylinder engine gets 30 miles to the gallon).

Yankees' Progress. The newest things in U.S. cars were unveiled this week. Nash had spent about $15 million in development work and retooling for its new "Airflyte" line. The new Nash silhouette is long, wide and low, with a racy air-scoop grille. A single "Uniscope" mounted on the steering column holds the speedometer and other gauges normally on the dashboard. The Nash owner can still sleep in his car, but the new beds can be made up (by lowering the bisected front-seat backrest) into either a single or double bed, without disturbing the rear trunk-compartment. The new Nash costs more than the old one ($275 more in the Super series, up to $390 additional in the Super-Ambassador).

The new Cadillac is not very different, on the outside, from the 1948 model with the fishtail fenders (it has a slightly longer, lower-looking silhouette). But inside, General Manager John F. Gordon has installed the most powerful engine now being put into a U.S. production model : a 160-h.p. V-8 which can drive the heavy Cadillac from a standstill to 80 m.p.h. in 30 seconds.

Gordon, who first began working on the engine ten years ago when he was Cadillac's motor design engineer, had wanted more fuel economy (he remembered the old gag of the filling-station man telling the big-car owner: "Shut off your motor, you're gaining on me") The new engine, with a stepped-up compression ratio of 7 1/2-to-1, achieves economy; Cadillac claims that it uses 15% to 20% less fuel than the 1948 model. It is so quiet, Gordon swears, that in road-testing it, he was bothered by the noise of the dashboard clock, had it redesigned to give the engine's purr a hearing.

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