TIME CLOCK

BIGGEST AIRLINER ORDER in history has just been given to Lockheed by T.W.A. Following the lead of United Air Lines, which ordered $42.5 million worth of piston-engined Douglas transports instead of switching over to turboprops (TIME, April 18), T.W.A. will pay $70 million for 24 beefed-up, high-speed (cruising at 350 plus m.p.h.) Lockheed Constellations for transatlantic service.

PEPSI-COLA has pushed Coca-Cola out of the top spot in Chicago in bottle sales, the first time that Pepsi has been able to claim the bottled soft-drink lead in any major U.S. metropolitan area.

SHIPBUILDING PROGRAM will get another big boost from the U.S. Government. The Office of Defense Mobilization will soon start a $64 million program to bolster the chronically short ship-turbine industry by building new plants, buying new tools to improve both the quantity and quality of U.S. turbine output.

USED-CAR GUARANTEE will be given by American Motors on cars sold by Nash dealers, the first time a parent auto company has backed the used cars sold by its dealers. American will guarantee any car that dealers mark with a special ticket ("bonded select used cars"), and dealers will make all necessary repairs free for a period of 30 days.

HOME LOANS by savings and loan associations will top $10 billion in 1955 for the first time, says J. Howard Edgerton, president of the United States Savings & Loan League. Home-loan volume for 1955's first quarter is up to 33% over 1954, and the forecast is for an over-all gain by the end of 1955 of at least $2 billion for loans on homes costing under $20,000.

PLYMOUTH hopes to bump Buick out of No. 3 spot in the industry soon. After losing out to Buick in 1954 for the first time, Plymouth is now outproducing its rival with 253,720 cars (v. 246,048 for Buick) so far in 1955. But Buick still holds the sales lead with 209,118 cars sold during the first quarter, some 10,000 more than Plymouth.

NO-NO-DOWN MORTGAGES will be dumped by the Veterans Administration in a move to tighten overliberal mortgage terms in fringe-credit areas. VA lawyers are now writing new regulations to end no-no mortgages, i.e., where the home buyer does not even pay closing costs and where builders throw in cash gifts, appliances and other inducements. However, the VA will still guarantee its standard 30-year, no-principal-down loans to veterans.

GENERAL Matthew B. Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff, is dickering with Henry J. Kaiser to take a job as Kaiser's top lieutenant in South America when he retires on Aug. 15. Kaiser wants Ridgway, who speaks fluent Spanish, and was boss of the Army's Caribbean Command from 1948 to 1949, to become president of Industries Kaiser Argentina, boss the production of autos, trucks, jeeps and station wagons for the Latin-American market.

LESS REGULATION for U.S. railroads has been recommended by President Eisenhower's top-level advisory committee on transport policy. To help the roads compete against airlines and truckers, the committee wants to let the railroads, instead of the ICC, set their own rates, make it easier for them to eliminate unprofitable routes, and make it permissible to quote cut rates for bulk business and long hauls. The chances of the plan's passing a regulation-minded Democratic Congress are dim.

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