IN a sports car rally, the course may lead over mountain pass and dirt road, through herds of cattle and city traffic, and the only sure way of covering its crises is to ride along. That is what TIME'S Bayard Hooper did in the seventh running of the Continental Divide Rally, the toughest of them all. Signed on as navigator to Sam Arnold in a British Peerless, Hooper brought his driver home a creditable seventh --from which he was disqualified in advance, since he had already scouted the course in line of duty. See SPORT, Rally in the Rockies.

THERE are two kinds of news: that which has happened and that which will happen. This week's TIME cover story reports something that has happened: the introduction of the first of Detroit's compact cars.

But long before. TIME readers have been told that the news would happen. As far back as 1953, TIME'S cover story on the small, sporty Studebaker (Feb. 2, 1953) spotted the small but growing opinion among auto experts that "the oversize car is on the way out, and car design may change fast in the next few years." TIME followed up with a cover story on the fast rise of Germany's small Volkswagen (Feb.15-1954).

Even so, Detroit thought the small car was just a fad. TIME was not so sure. In a cover story on Ford Styling Chief George Walker (Nov. 4, 1957), TIME underscored the rising chorus of complaints that "Detroit's new chariots are too long, too heavy, too brassy." What TIME was reporting did not agree with many of the automakers' market surveys. But when auto sales skidded down sharply, TIME again updated the subject in a cover story on the Big Three (May 12, 1958), buttonholed motorists around the land. TIME found that they really thought U.S. cars were "too complicated," "too full of gadgets," "too expensive," and that "they all look alike."

Soon even some of the biggest wheels in Detroit began to doubt that U.S. consumers wanted their cars so big and bright. In the forefront of public doubters was American Motors' President George Romney (TIME, April 6, 1959). Privately, there was also Ed Cole, who had been working on a compact car for years.

To get this story, TIME'S Detroit Bureau Chief Marshall Berges spent 50 hours with Cole, drove the Corvair and other cars on the G.M. proving grounds, as did Marshall Loeb, who wrote the story. For their combined work, edited by Joe Purtell, see BUSINESS, The New Generation.

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