Selective Recovery

March 4, 1933, was the turning-point in the depression and therefore in American economic life. Mr. Hoover’s policy of letting the depression run its course still had much to recommend it from the standpoint of orthodox economics. Unfortunately, the orthodox economist had not taken into consideration the possibility of a banking collapse. With the arrival [...]

Receiverships

Two important developments of the early 1933 season belong so closely to the 1930-32 period that they may best be considered in this chapter. One was the receivership of Willys-Overland; the other was the receivership of Studebaker. The Willys-Overland receivership (February, 1933) was not surprising. The company had been accumulating murderous deficits ever since 1929. [...]

The Vanishing Customer

At the beginning of 1930, industry as a whole was not certain whether it had sprained its ankle or broken its neck. Professional diagnosticians, both political and economic, commonly endorsed the sprained-ankle theory. The usual New Year’s forecasts were, as usual, optimistic. They stressed the point that in spite of what had happened on the [...]

The End of Prosperity

Although 1929 has given its numerals to its decade, 1928 was, from the standpoint of the greater part of the automobile industry, a year of considerably better net income. This circumstance results chiefly from the fact that booms and depressions do not go strictly with the calendar. The last three months of 1929 belong to [...]

The End of Model T

The great merit of the 1925 season, as has been said, had been that there was still room enough for everyone to get along. During 1925, however, the capacity of the industry had increased by at least another 1,000,000 cars and at the beginning of 1926 the automobile manufacturer had plant and equipment sufficient for [...]

The Golden Age

Inasmuch as the 1924-25 period in the automobile industry began with rather a sharp recession, reference to it as the “golden age” may seem rather peculiar. But the 1924 slump was merely an interruption to the recovery from the postwar crisis; in 1925 the industry had another of its customary record years. More significantly, 1925 [...]

A Favorable Year

The year 1923 picked up where 1922 had left off, and improved very materially upon it. As often happens in a period of almost universal prosperity (and the auto industry was almost universally prosperous in 1923), there was a comparative absence of noteworthy events, most of the news being made by new high records of [...]

Price Reductions

The progress of the industry as a whole was marked by a continuance of price reductions and by a revival of volume which began in April and continued throughout the year. After a good, but not remarkable, first quarter the manufacturers sold 218,000 automobiles in April and suddenly realized that happy days were here again. [...]

Shifts and Changes

So much for the general background of the 1920’s and for the development of conditions which produced a crowded automobile field. At the beginning of 1922, however, the maker of cars, though happily unaware of his troubles in the distant future, was acutely conscious of his troubles in the immediate past. It was not until [...]

New Times, New Problems

Between 1900 and 1920, the main problem of the auto-maker was the problem of producing cars. There was first the problem of producing a car good enough to create and to satisfy a demand for it. The arrival of the self-starter (in 1912) might be taken as marking the end of the more primitive automobile [...]

Pages: Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next

Featured Content

Nicholas Joseph Cugnot

Hot Cars

Selective Recovery

Receiverships

The Vanishing Customer

The End of Prosperity

The End of Model T

The Golden Age

A Favorable Year

Price Reductions

Shifts and Changes

New Times, New Problems

Categories

Archives

Translator

Most popular

Recent

Tags

Related Posts