CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY—AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRIAL
FIGURES ARE AMAZING.
By Edward G. Westlake,
Automobile Editor, The Chicago Evening Post.
During the year 1916 the automobile industry in the United States entered the “billion dollar class,” and manufacturers who have membership in the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce which holds the industry, as it were, in the hollow of its great hand, made no more ado over this significant, almost amazing development than to meet in the annual banquet and reiterate their statements that the critic did not live who could predict, with certainty, the gain that might be made in 1917.
It was expected that the industry would climb into the billion dollar fold—men said that the fourth industry in the country had the financial stage set for starring the “Big Billion,” and they never permit themselves to see a possibility of a recession unless steel becomes too great to be kept within bounds—in short material price is the only problem the venturesome automobile maker will put down for earnest discussion.
Accurate figures spread on the records of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce indicate that retail sales of motor vehicles in 1916 totaled $1,068,028,273. This total includes a production of 1,525,578 cars and 92,130 trucks. The passenger cars were valued at $921,378,000 and the trucks were listed at $166,650,275. When the statisticians of the national organization compared figures and found the gain was 80 per cent, and paused long enough to find that the gain the year previous had been 36 per cent, they talked about the complete automobilization of the country and the inevitable addition of more than 2,000,000 to the total of cars in operation in the United States.