DETROIT - AMIGA TECHNICAL INFORMATION
INSTALLING TO HARD DRIVE
Step One:

Insert disk 1 into the internal drive and disk 2 into the external drive if you have one. Turn the machine on. The Workbench will load. Double click on the disk icon labelled "DETROIT". A window will open, showing three icons.
Step Two:

Double click on the icon that says "HDInstall" and select the device to which you wish to install the game. You may install to the Hard drive partition of your choice, to RAM or to PCMCIA Card.
Step Three:

You will be asked to specify a directory name into which the game files will be installed. The default name is DETROIT. Press enter to accept this name. To choose a different name, backspace through the default name and type in your own choice. Press enter when finished.
Step Four:

The computer will install disk 1 and then prompt you for the second disk if it is not in an external drive. The installation will continue automatically after you insert the disk (you do not need to press a key to continue). You will then be prompted to insert the third disk. The machine will display "Installation Complete" when it has finished installing the game. Click on this screen to return to the workbench.
PLAYING FROM HARD DRIVE

Double click on the icon representing the hard drive partition or device to which you installed the game. then double click again on the game directory. The game icons will appear. Double click on the icon named "DETROIT" to begin playing the 32 colour version.

If you have an A1200, or an A4000, then click on the icon named, "DETROIT_AGA" to play the 256 colour version
PLAYING FROM FLOPPIES

Note: We recommend that you backup your disks before attempting to play the game.
Step One:

Ensure disk 1 is write enabled and insert it into the internal drive. Insert disk 2 into your external drive if you have one. Turn the machine on. The workbench will load. Double click on the disk icon labelled "DETROIT" A window will open showing three icons.
Step Two:

Double click on the game icon named "DETROIT" to play the 32 colour version. If you have an A1200 or an A4000, then click on the icon named "DETROIT_AGA" to play the 256 colour version. The title screen will appear; click on it to continue. The machine will prompt you to change to the second & third game disks at the appropriate time. Follow the on screen instructions.

Note: When playing from floppy disks, you may prefer to reduce the number of "disk swaps" required by disabling music and sound effects (in the configuration panel, in the Administration Building)
DETROIT - OWNERS MANUAL

Thank you for buying this product. It is the result of a great deal of hard work and careful thought, and we hope that it will give you many hours of enjoyment.

We are proud of our games, but we know that they can never be perfect. If you have any ideas about how we can improve, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please take the time to fill out the enclosed registration card. We can then add you to our mailing list, and keep you informed of new products and special offers as they come out.

Please read the file on your game disk entitled README.TXT for information on changes made and additional features added to DETROIT after this this manuscript went to press.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome to DETROIT

Objectives
Installation
The Game Interface
The Basics

Starting Off in DETROIT
The Main Factory Screen
Essential Concepts
Setting The Game options
Getting Things Rolling

Summary Of Game Play
The Roads Must Roll: Producing Your First Car
The One To Buy: Creating The Demand and Supplying It.
Shifting Into High Gear

he Car of the Future:Designing New Automobiles
Your Own Personal Growth Industry: Expansion and Innovation
Charting Your Progress

Feedback: Gauging Your Progress with Reports
Analysis: Finding Trends Over Time With Graphs
WELCOME TO DETROIT
Objectives

DETROIT begins in the year 1908. The streets of the world are filled with horse drawn carriages and wagons, and no one has even heard of gas stations or auto mechanics bills.

You're going to change all that.

You are a bright young entrepreneur with a dream: to use the new technology of the assembly line to bring the automobile to the average man, and thereby to build a company that will last a hundred years and reach every corner of the globe. You start with a single factory, one sales office, $60,000 in capital funds and the design for a prototype car. From that foundation, you will guide your company's expansion, while constantly working to stay ahead of your competitors by creating better and better cars for your factories to produce. You'll make marketing decisions, hire and fire your employees, build and modernise your factories, invest in research to stay on the cutting edge of automobile technology, and incorporate that technology into successful designs for new cars. Your goal is to see to it that your company survives to the year 2008, and, in the process, becomes the most successful automobile manufacturer in the world.

Happy Motoring!
Installation

For complete instructions on how to install DETROIT and where to find help if you need it, please refer to the technical Supplement and Tutorial booklet
The Game Interface

DETROIT is designed to be played equally well with a keyboard and mouse, or with a standard keyboard alone. Since most players prefer to play with the mouse this manual assumes that you have one. If you don't, you can find a complete list of keyboard commands on the included icon card
The Mouse and the Pointer

In general, clicking the left mouse button executes a command, and clicking the right mouse button causes the game to exit the current screen without executing any of the commands you may have entered. When you are told to click on something, assume that you should use the left mouse button unless the instructions specifically say otherwise.

On every screen that appears in the game, you will see a number of command buttons, which appear as small rectangular boxes with keywords for various commands on them. Clicking on a command button is the easiest way to give instructions to DETROIT. In many cases when you click on a command button, additional screens or "panels" will pop up on your monitor with more command buttons or more information, or both. Most of the time the buttons are obvious but on some of the game screens they have been incorporated into the scenery. When the pointer is over a hidden button, the pointer symbol changes from a red "X" to a green arrow, and a message appears in the message box (which will be described a little further on) telling you what that button does. Most panels will have a button labelled Done or Exit, which you should click when you want the game to save your changes or execute your commands and then close the panel. Some panels will offer you a lettered list of choices, and expect you to highlight the one you want. You can do this by clicking directly on your choice, or by clicking and holding down the mouse button while dragging the pointer through the list until the one you want is reached, then releasing the mouse button.
The Keyboard Input Box

Sometimes, when you select a command button, a small rectangular window called a keyboard input box will pop up. This happens when DETROIT wants you to type in some information. If DETROIT is asking you to name something, such as your company, your save file, or the new car model you just designed, you should type in the name from the keyboard and press enter. The first letter of any such entry must be a character, not a space if you type a space accidentally press Escape and start over. If you want to edit the text already in the box, use the left arrow key to back up without erasing the entry. The mouse commands will not work when the keyboard input box is in use.

Sometimes, when DETROIT is asking you for a number instead of a name, the use of the keyboard is given as an option instead of a requirement there will usually be two mouse command buttons nearby, one with a plus sign and one with a minus sign, which you can use to enter in the requested number. Clicking on these buttons raises or lowers the value in the box until you have the number you want. If you click on one of these buttons and hold the button down, the numbers will scroll rapidly in the indicated direction. If the number you want is very large, however, you can simply type the value in from the keyboard. Press Enter when you finish to return to mouse command mode (the mouse will not work while you are in keyboard input mode). To exit keyboard input mode without executing your changes, press the escape key.
The Menu Mover

DETROIT has a special feature to allow you to customise the appearance of your game to a certain extent. Each of the pop-up panels that appears on the screen will have a small yellow box in the upper left hand corner. By clicking on this box, and then clicking elsewhere on the screen, you can relocate the panel to any position you like. Once changed, the panel will show up in that position whenever it appears for the rest of the game, even after saving and restoring. When you begin a completely new game, however, your settings will be lost.

In a multiplayer game, each player can customise the location of his own panels separately - the game will remember which arrangement goes with which player and will bring up the right one at the right time. If you click on the Menu Mover box and then decide you don't wish to relocate the panel after all, just right click and the panel will return to its original position.
THE BASICS
Starting Off in DETROIT

Each time you start up DETROIT, you will be given the option to start a new game, load a previously saved game to continue playing it, or quit back to DOS.

If you have already played and saved a game, you can select the Load button at this point. You will be given a list of up to twenty saved games to choose from, each preceded by a letter

Highlight the game you want to load, then click on Use, and your game will be loaded and ready to play.

If you are starting a new game, click on Start. The computer will present you with a number of panels that will appear only when you first begin a game, and not thereafter.
Set the Number of Players

First, you will be asked to set the number of players for the game. Each game can have up to four players. If there are fewer than four players, the remaining slots will be played by the computer. The first slot is automatically set to human and can't be changed. (We have assumed that the first player will be human; if this is incorrect, we apologise.) Each of the other three slots can be toggled between computer and human by clicking.
Choose a Starting Territory

Next, you will be presented with the territory Map screen. DETROIT divides the world into sixteen territories: Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, North-eastern USA, South-western USA, South-eastern USA, North-western USA, Canada, South America, Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, China, Japan, India, and the Mid East. Choose one of these territories to be your starting area by clicking on it. Since DETROIT strives for historical accuracy, not all starting territories are equal. For your first game, we recommend starting in North America or Northern Europe. Later, for more of a challenge, you can choose other territories as your home base. In general, when lists of territories are displayed, your starting region will have a check mark beside it.
Name Your Company and Your Car

Once you have selected your starting territory, a keyboard input box will appear. Type in the name of your company ("Megabux Autos" for example), and press Enter. your company name may have up to fifteen characters in it, which may be letters, numbers, or spaces. Then do the same thing to name your prototype automobile. Once you have baptised your company and your car, you will be presented with the Main Factory Screen, and can begin playing.
To Exit DETROIT

At any point in the game, you may edit DETROIT by pressing Alt-X and confirming that you wish to edit to DOS. Your current game will not be automatically saved, however. If you want to keep your current game, use the disk icon or the file cabinet in Administration to save it before exiting.
The Main Factory Screen.

This screen shows a picture of your company's headquarters. At the bottom of the screen is a wood grain bar with a variety of information on it, called, simply enough, the Info Bar. Keep an eye on the Info bar, because there are several useful things on it.
The Info Bar

At the left hand edge of the Info Bar is a square box. When you start a game, this box will say "Jan 1908". As time progresses, this box will update to show you the current month and year of your game.

At the right hand edge of the Info Bar is another square box. When you are on the main factory screen, this box shows a calendar-like grid called the Month End icon. Clicking on this box ends your turn. When you are on most other screens, this box displays a silhouette of a factory. Clicking on this icon returns you to the Main Factory Screen. When you call up a report or a graph to see your company's progress, this box holds an icon of a stack of papers under a red arrow. Click on this icon to close the report.

The centre section of the Info bar shows you three things. At the top centre, your company's current funds are displayed, followed by your company's name. At the bottom centre is the message box. Whenever your pointer is over a command button, obvious or hidden, a message will appear in the message box telling you what that button does. Sometimes this may be your only source of information, so pay attention. Also, if you try to do something that the game doesn't permit, the message box will say "Message Present" to let you know that somewhere else on the screen, a panel has popped up explaining what you did that caused the problem.
The Game Tools

Between the message box and the End Turn/Return to Factory icon are six smaller icons. The first icon, the floppy disk, allows you to quickly and easily save your game at any point. The other five "gateway" icons will, when clicked on, take you instantly to one of the five main game areas as shown below.

Floppy Disk:      Saves your Game
Bar Graph:        Takes you to the Administration Office Screen
World Map:        Takes you to the Sales/Factory Screen
Tools:            Takes you to the Research Screen
Newspaper:        Takes you to the Marketing Office Screen
Automobile:       Takes you to the Design Screen

Saving Your Game

There are two ways to save your game for later play. The easiest way is to click once on the disk icon which appears on the info bar. You will be shown a lettered list of available game slots. Click on the slot you want to use, and enter the name of the saved game into the keyboard input box that appears. If you click on an already-occupied slot (one with a name other than "Empty"), you will overwrite the old game stored there, so be certain that's what you want to do before you do it.

Up to twenty games may be saved at one time. Your game file will be saved in whatever directory DETROIT is being played from. The game in the A slot will be saved as DETROITA.SAV, the one in the B slot as DETROITB.SAV. and so on.
The Factory

Embedded in the picture of the factory are six hidden buttons, each corresponding to one of the buildings in the picture. These buildings are the places where you will manage the various aspects of your company.

As you move your mouse pointer around on the screen, you will know when you encounter a button because the pointer will change to a green arrow and a message will appear in the message box telling you what building you are pointing to. Clicking on the button takes you inside the building, where you can get to work running your business. The use of each department will be covered later in this manual.
Essential Concepts

The two most important concepts in DETROIT are the ones most important to real businesses everywhere: Time and Money.
Time: Beginning and Ending a Turn

DETROIT is an entirely turn based game and has no real time component. Game time runs in months and years. Most operating costs are figured monthly, although a few aspects of the game are figured yearly, such as the inflation rate. You alone determine when the month is over by clicking on the Month End icon on the Info Bar. The number of game actions which may be performed during that month is limited only by your strategy and patience.

After the Month End button has been selected, you will be presented with a Month End Summary Screen, showing all the possible game actions with a check mark displayed next to those you have taken. A confirmation box is also displayed. If you discover that there are further actions you'd like to take before declaring the month over, click on "No" and you will be returned to the Main Factory Screen. If you are certain you have done everything you wish to click on "Yes". If you are playing the game in single player mode, your company's Profit/Loss report (which will be explained later) will appear. When you are done reading it, click on the Close Report icon to begin your next turn. If the game is being played by more than one human player, a warning flag will appear to give the players the opportunity to change seats so that the next person's turn can begin.
Money

As should be obvious, money is very important in DETROIT. Every player starts with the same $60,000 in capital funds the speed with which that amount increases (or decreases) is the only measure of how well your company is doing. Most operating costs are deducted monthly, but some expenses are subtracted from your company's funds instantly, such as the cost for opening new sales offices and upgrading factories. Money from car sales accrues monthly. There are both obvious and easily controlled costs such as employee wages, and less controllable expenses such as transportation charges. You should always have more cash on hand than you think you will need. If your company funds ever drop to zero, you may take out up to three loans to save your company - but after the third strike, your company will go bankrupt and the game ends.

Inflation will increase your operating costs as time passes, and wages will have to rise as well if you expect to keep and increase your work force. This will necessitate raising the prices on your cars - but raise them too fast, and you could wind up with a stockroom full of unsold autos, and a bankrupt company! If you get into a cash crunch through poor planning, you can turn to the bank for a loan, but the bank can be stingy and will expect a high rate of interest on the money it lends.
DETROIT and Reality

DETROIT is, above all else, an entertaining strategy game. We have endeavoured however to make it as historically accurate as possible without losing playability. The game takes into account issues such as the change in demand for different types of cars over the years, historical rates of inflation and wage increase, and differences in demand from one territory to another. For the easiest starting conditions, you may want to begin your business in North America or Northern Europe. For a more difficult game, you might pick China or Africa as your starting location.
File Management

You can, at any time, save your current game of DETROIT by clicking on the disk icon. You may also access the save file command, as well as other file management commands and the game options commands, from the file cabinet in the Administration office. From the Main Factory Screen click on Administration, and then click on the picture of the file cabinet at the right edge of the screen.
Save:

Allows you to save your current game. As with saving from the disk icon, click on the slot to which you want to save the game and enter the name into the keyboard input box.
Load:

Allows you to load a previously saved game to continue playing it. This option is also available at game start. Your current game will not be automatically saved. When you restore a saved game, your original save file remains. If you wish, you can assign the game a new name the next time you save it, so that you can go back and replay the game from the earlier save point if you want.
Restart:

After confirmation, this option will end the current game (without saving it) and return you to the start of the game.
Quit:

This option allows you to exit to DOS after confirmation. Your current game will not automatically be saved before exiting. You can also exit to DOS at anytime by pressing alt-X.
Setting the Game Options.

Select the Configure option in the file management menu to set the game options for DETROIT.
Sound:

Toggles the game's sound effect on and off.
Music:

Toggles the game's music on and off.
Dissolve:

Toggling this option changes the screen-exit effect from a gradual dissolve (when ON) to a slow fade (when OFF), which may speed up the transition on some computers.
Delay:

Use this option to set the length of time that message panels will remain on your screen before disappearing. Hold down the left mouse button to scroll rapidly through the settings.
GETTING THINGS ROLLING
Summary of Game Play

There are several independent facets to DETROIT, all of which work to determine your company's success. When the game begins, you have a car design, some money and minimal facilities (one sales office and one factory in your chosen starting territory). Your first order of business is to get your prototype built and marketed so that your company has income to rely on for expansion. The next step is to invest in research, for without research, you will never have new parts to use in your cars and they'll quickly become obsolete. Once your technicians have made some advances, you will need to design new cars, put your factories to work making them, and get your sales offices selling them.

When your company is securely grounded, you'll want to think about expanding into new territories: first by opening sales offices supplied by factories that already exist, and later by setting up new factories to supply sales offices in distant parts of the world. You will also need to make decisions along the way about what types of cars to sell where, when to upgrade your factory facilities, and when to stop production on car models that are no longer selling well. If you make wise decisions, your company will grow and prosper - but if you are foolish, bankruptcy lies around every corner.
The Roads Must Roll: Producing Your First Car

At game start, you have the following assets: one factory and one sales office in your starting territory; the design for your first car; and $60,000 in your checking account. What you don't have is cars to sell, so your first task will be to build some.
Hiring, Firing, and Paying Your Employees

In order to get your autos built, you need people to work for you. Employee relations are handled through Administration. Clicking on the Administration building on the main factory screen brings up the Administration Office with its four hidden buttons. The use of the File Management option has already been covered, and the use of Reports and the Bank will be covered later

Click on the Personnel door to bring up the Personnel Menu. There are four buttons at the top of the screen (Benefits, Assm, Tech, and Done), a column showing the total monthly wages paid to all your employees, and two smaller inset panels where you will do your hiring and set wages.

You can hire two types of employees: Assembly workers (shown as "Assm workers") to put your cars together, and Technicians, to work in your Research department. (You don't need to hire people for your sales offices they are automatically staffed) In each panel, a column of information appears. Avail tells you how many workers are available for you to hire. This number will change from month to month depending on the wages you set. Idle tells you how many workers you have hired but not assigned to job sites. Emp tells you how many workers you have who are assigned, and Wages is the monthly pay rate you have set for them. The subtotal will tell you how much money you are spending on your employees for that month.

To put more people to work, click on Hire for the type of worker you want. A keyboard input box will appear. Enter the number of employees you want to hire, either with the mouse buttons or the keyboard, then click on Wage to set their monthly pay rate. If you want to lay off some employees, click on Fire and handle it the same way.

Once you have hired some workers, click on Benefits to set aside a percentage of the total wages you are paying to be used for benefits for your workers. You don't have to give your workers benefits but it might be a good idea.
Putting Your Employees to Work

Once you have people hired, you have to give them work to do. Assembly workers need to be assigned to Factories, and Technicians need to be assigned to Research.

There are two different paths you can take to assign your workers. Assembly workers are assigned through the Factories subpanel in the Sales/Factories section, and Technicians are assigned through the research Menu panel. On the Research screen. In addition, you can access either of these two screens directly from the personnel panel. Either way, you end up at the same set of screens. If you are assigning new employees, the personnel screen is the most direct, but if you are shifting your employee assignments around, you may find it more convenient to go straight to the appropriate area from the Main Factory screen.

If you enter the Sales/Factories screen from the Main Factory, you will be shown the Territory Map. Click on the territory to which you want to assign factory workers. There will be a separate Sales/Factories panel for each of the sixteen world territories in DETROIT. If you enter the Sales/Factories screen from the Personnel screen, the panel for your starting territory will automatically show up.

To assign workers to your factory, first be sure that you are in the correct territory screen. At the start, the panel for your starting territory should show one sales office in the Sales box and a level one factory in the Factory box. DETROIT allows you to have only one factory per territory - the number indicates how modern your factory is, not how many of them you have in that area.

Click on Detail in the Factories box. This panel allows you to start, stop, and modify your assembly lines. Click on one of the assembly lines to highlight it, then click Model. A panel will pop up showing a list of your current car models. Highlight the model you want on that line (your prototype is your only option at the start) and then click Use. That model will show up on the selected assembly line. Next, click Assign, and a keyboard input box will appear. Enter in the number of workers you want to start working on that line. (The maximum number you can assign to a single line is two hundred and fifty five.) Repeat this process for each assembly line you want to get running. If you want to shift your workers around, highlight an assembly line and click on Free. Enter in the number of workers you want to free up by taking them off that line. Once the workers have been freed up, you can reassign them to another line with the Assign button. If you want to stop one of your assembly lines entirely, click on Stop. The use of the rest of the buttons on the Factory panel will be explained later.

When you have opened sales offices or set up a factory in more than one territory, you can use the Prev and Next buttons on the Sales/Factory panel to cycle through the sixteen territories until you find the one you want to adjust. Clicking on List will show you how many sales offices you have in each territory, and what level factory, if any, is there.

Once you've staffed your factory with workers, you want do the same thing for your Research department by assigning your newly hired Technicians to various projects. If you are already in the Personnel Menu, click on Tech to bring up the Research Menu. If you are at the Main Factory screen, click on the Research building to bring up the Research screen, then click on the picture of the lab technician to access the Research Menu. There are a total of seven hidden buttons on the Research screen

When you access the Research Menu either through Personnel or through Research, a panel will pop up showing a list of the seven systems and parts that go into one of your cars: engines, brakes, suspension, cooling systems, body design, safety features, and luxury options. You can assign Technicians to do research on any or all of them.

Highlight the part you want to be researched, then click on Assign. Set the number of Technicians for each research department with the keyboard input box in the same way you assigned Assembly Workers to your factory. (The maximum number you can assign is to one project is two hundred and fifty-five.)

When you click on done for each part, a check mark will automatically appear in the box by that part on the main Research panel If, later on, you want to stop research on that part, you can manually toggle off the check box by clicking on it. Even if there are Technicians assigned to the part, no research will take place unless the check mark appears If you want to shift your Technicians around, highlight one of the parts, and click on Free to free up workers by taking them off that project They can then be reassigned to a different department with the Assign button.
The One To Buy: Creating the Demand and Supplying It.

Now that your factories are rolling, you have to do something to let people know that you have cars for sale, and get them interested in buying. You also have to see to it that your dealers have cars to sell to them. In other words, you have to market your wares, and get them out to the lot so they can be bought.
Selling Your Cars

From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Marketing building. The Marketing Office screen will appear, with the Info Bar at the bottom. You have several choices for what media to use to advertise your autos, but not all of them are available at the start. In order to advertise on Radio and Television, you'll have to wait until they've been invented.

There are six hidden buttons on the Advertising Screen. Five are your marketing options, and the sixth brings up a quick reference Marketing List

The Marketing List will give you a summary of the advertising expenditures you've set for each territory. Clicking on Prev and Next will let you cycle through the territories. Marketing decisions must be made separately for each territory in which you are trying to sell cars.

Clicking on Billboards or Sports will bring up a keyboard input box with plus and Minus buttons. There is a minimum cost associated with each choice, and the price will increase over time as inflation takes its toll. Clicking on the plus button will cause the minimum amount to show up in the window. If you don't want to spend that much, either click on the minus button to change the amount back to zero, or right click to exit the panel, and go in search of more economical advertising medium.

Magazines, Radio, and Television are slightly different. Clicking on these options will get you a list of various speciality markets in which you can advertise your cars. In Magazines for example you could choose to target Sports publications, or Women's magazines, or any of the others. For Radio and Television, you can decide what kinds of programs you want to air your commercials on. Highlight the publication or program area of your choice, and click on it. You will get a keyboard input box like the one for the other three options, which can be dealt with in the same way. You can't target specific models to specific markets, however there is no way to advertise just your sports cars in sporting magazines, or just your family wagons on television sitcoms.

Advertising costs, like most costs, are deducted from your funds at the end of each month.
Getting the Cars to the Buyers

Now that your clever advertising campaigns have stirred up public interest, you have to get those cars into the showrooms.

From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Sales/Factories building. The Territory Map will appear, with icons indicating where you have opened sales offices or factories. Sales offices are represented by a light blue building icon, with a number showing how many offices are open, and factories are represented by a black building icon where the number represents the factories level. At the start, you will see one of each icon in your starting territory (Refer to Territory Screen to see how the territory map would look with a sales office and factory in each territory)

Click on the territory for which you want to adjust your sales offices or your factory. The Sales Offices and Factories panels will appear. (You saw these earlier when you were assigning your assembly workers and getting the assembly lines rolling. As explained before, you can also get to these panels through Administration: Personnel, if you choose.) The Next and Prev buttons on this panel allow you to cycle through the territories.

In the Office panel, click on Detail. A screen will pop up showing you a list of models and prices, with a number of command buttons. Your prototype will appear in the first slot, highlighted. There are two things you need to do to get your cars to the dealers: the first is to establish supply lines from your factories so the cars will be shipped, and the second is to set the price. Both of these things are done from the Office Detail panel.

A single factory in one territory can supply sales offices in a number of other territories, if it is making enough cars. When you begin the game you will have only one factory and one sales office, both in the same territory. Click on Supply Line. You will notice that you can have up to three supply lines for each territory, and that your starting territory is listed in the first slot. This shows that you already have one supply line automatically running from your factory in your starting territory to your sales office there. Any time you have a factory and a sales office in the same territory, that factory automatically becomes the first supply line for that office. Thus you do not need to do anything to set up the supply line for your first sales office. When you have factories and sales offices to several territories, arranging supply lines becomes a more complicated matter. This will be covered later, in the section on expanding your company.

Setting a good price for your cars is crucial to your company's success, so DETROIT gives you a number of options for pricing your automobiles. Pricing strategies must be set individually for each territory. Make sure you are on the right panel before you start, then click on Office Detail Highlight one of your current production models from the lettered list, then click Price. A keyboard input box will appear, with a number of command buttons nearby. This panel automatically appears in the Single pricing mode, which allows you to set the price for a single model of car in a single area. The other three modes (Model, Territory, and Global) are useful only after you have multiple models of cars being sold in several territories, so they will be covered in the section on expanding your company.

Use either the plus and minus mouse command keys or direct keyboard input to specify the price in dollars for the selected model. Click Done or press Enter when finished. on the displayed list of production models, the price will appear next to the model name and the box will turn into a check mark. As long as the check mark is toggled on, that model will be sold at that price in that location. If you decide not to sell that model from that showroom, click on the check mark to toggle it back into a box, and that car will no longer be offered for sale in that territory.
SHIFTING INTO HIGH GEAR

If your factory is building cars which are selling, and your company is operating at a profit you're off to a good start. It's time to think about what your next product is going to be, and to start extending your company's reach.
The Car of the future: Designing New Automobiles

Your prototype, great car though it is, won't stay in style forever. Your company is going to have to come up with something new to offer consumers if you want it to last more than a few years. Here's where your investment in Research pays off.
Obtaining New Technology

If you have invested in Research, sooner or later your Technicians will come up with some new automobile technology. When they do, at the start of the month a panel will appear informing you that new developments have been made. To find out what your people have come up with you can go to Research and call up the Systems Details panels. To see what the new part looks like, and to put it into a new car, you need to head over to your Design department.
Designing a New Car

From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Design building. The first page of the design worksheet will appear with your prototype car design displayed. There are two pages to each car design, the first for designing the body and look of the car, and the second, click on functional components that will make it run. To get from the first page to the second, click on Part. On the second page, click on Body to return to the first page. To begin an entirely new design, go to the first design page and click on New.

The first design page shows you a summary of the components in the design for each car, and has command buttons to let you page through your current designs or load an old design from the Archives (the use of the Archives will be explained later). You can have up to sixteen current designs at a time. A picture of the car currently being worked on appears on the right side of the screen to the upper right hand corner of this inset display will be either the word "New" indicating that this design is in development, or a number such as "1/16" to indicate which of your sixteen current designs you are presently looking at.

Most of the actual design work is done on the second page of the design worksheet. The one exception to this is the body of the car, which you specify on the first page. All other components the engine, brakes, suspension, cooling system, and luxury and safety features - are added from the second page.

On the right hand side of the first page are the buttons that allow you to design the body for your new car. First, you need to decide what type of car you're building - a sports car? A van? A compact? Click on the Type button to cycle through your options. A basic body design for each vehicle type will be presented. After a basic type has been selected, you can then modify any or all of the three body sections (front, middle, and back) until the car is exactly to your liking. Highlight the section of the body you want to design, then click on the plus and minus keys to cycle through your options. Mix and match them to until you have the exact combination you want. Use the Colour button to select a colour scheme for your new model.

When you are happy with the body of your vehicle click on Part to start designing the rest of it. The second page of the design screen has four boxes, one each for the Engine, Brakes, Suspension, and Cooling System. In each box, click on the plus and minus keys to cycle through the available choices for each part. If you want more information about a particular component click on Detail to pop up a screen with the design specifications.

To add luxury or safety options to the new car, click on either the Luxury or Safety button. A list will pop up, showing which of each of these options has been added to the design. If you are starting from scratch, these lists will be empty. the small inset panel at the bottom allows you to cycle through the available options with the plus and minus keys. Click on Detail to get more information about the feature. To add an option to the car, highlight one of the lettered slots and click Use. The option that appears in the inset window will be added to the design. Likewise, if you highlight an option on the list and click Remove, that option will be taken off the car. You can add up to ten luxury and five safety options to one car. To return to the first page of the design, click on Body.

Your design options will be very limited at first, until your Technicians provide you with enough new components to give you a decent selection to choose from.

Once you have more than one design on the boards, you can click on Prev and Next on the first page of the design sheet to cycle through your current designs. When you fill up all of the sixteen available slots with car designs, you will have to make room for more, either by saving some of your current designs to the Archives or by getting rid of some designs. To file a design away in the Archives, click on Put, and the current design will be saved directly to the Archives. If you are unhappy with a design and want to get rid of it completely, click on Del, and after confirmation the current car design will be deleted permanently from your records.

Sometimes, you may want to make modifications on an already existing design. If the design is current, you can simply make whatever changes you like, then save the new design under a different name. If the old design has been saved in the Archives, click on Get. The first page of the Archive records will appear. Click on the design you want, then click on Use, and the design will be put back onto the current list, assuming there is room for it (Click on Prev/Next on the Archive panel to page through the rest of the Archive records if the one you want isn't on the first page.)

To see what a sample car design looks like, look at the design specifications for your prototype This is a very simple car, of the "Family Sedan" type. By clicking on Part, you can see that the only components the car has are the engine - a four-cylinder in line - and a simple hand brake. It has no suspension or cooling system, and no luxuries or safety devices. There's a lot of room for improvement.
Testing Your New Design

When you have designed a new car to your satisfaction, return to the first page of the design worksheet, and click Make. This directs your Technicians to make and test a prototype of your new automobile. A keyboard input box will pop up to allow you to name your new design, and ask you to confirm your decision to have the test car built. Then your test drivers will start putting the new car through its paces to check its performance.

The testing screen allows you to choose which of five performance checks you want to put your new car through, and to watch the car as it is tested. Initially, the view screen at the top right shows an interference pattern. Once you start testing the car, this window allows you to watch the testing as it progresses. The five available testing categories are Acceleration, Braking, Handling, Capacity, and Fuel Economy. To order a test, click on the test name. The cost of the test will be added to the computer printout in the lower right quarter of the screen. Each test costs a different amount. To select all of the tests at once, click on Test All.

When you have selected the tests you want, click on the button that says Run. The cost for materials and testing will be deducted from your funds, and the view screen will show you the car as it is put through its paces. If you don't wish to watch the tests as they take place, left click on the view screen as each test begins and the results will be instantly displayed.

The testing results are read as follows;
Acceleration:

shows you how long in seconds it takes the car to go from zero to sixty miles per hour.
Braking:

tells you the distance required in feet for the car to go from seventy miles per hour to a full stop.
Road Handling:

gives you the number of gees at which the car stops holding the road.
Capacity:

"Seating" tells you the number of people the car can carry, and "Cargo" is the holding space the vehicle has in cubic feet.
Fuel Economy:

shows the miles per gallon of gasoline the car get in the city and on the highway.

The Overall rating of the car is a percentage value showing how well that car is predicted to market as that type of vehicle. Different types of cars will require different emphasis in design: a van needs more cargo space than a sports car, while a sports car requires better acceleration than a van.
Using the Archives

You can have up to sixteen current car designs in production at any time. If you exceed that number, but still want to hang onto your older designs you will have to store them in the Archives.

To reach the Archives, go to the Main factory Screen and click on the Archives building in the upper left part of the screen. The Archives panel will appear. Click on Put, and you will see a list of your sixteen current designs. To move one to the archives, highlight it, then click on Use, and the design will be taken out of the current list and stored.

You can also bring an older design back from the archives if you discover a need for it. From the main archive panel, click on Get. A list of the first twenty archived designs will appear. You can archive a total of one hundred designs. To see the rest of the archives list, click on Prev and Next to cycle through the pages of the archives until you find the one you want. When you've located the design to be loaded, highlight it, then click on Use. The current design list will appear. Highlight an empty slot and click on Use in that window. The selected archive design will move to the current list. If you highlight an occupied slot on the current list and click Use, the selected current design and the selected archived design will swap places.

If you should happen to use up all the space in your archives, or if you just want to keep your archive lists short and easy to handle, click on Delete from the main archives panel. The archived design list will appear. Highlight the design you want to get rid of and click Use. The game will ask you to confirm your instruction; if you are sure you won't ever want that design again, click Yes. Once a design is deleted from the archive, it's gone forever, so be sure you're finished with it before you confirm.
Your Own Personal Growth Industry: Expansion and Innovation
Opening up New Territories

Setting up sales offices and factories in new territories greatly adds to the complexity of your game, and is essential. For your company's continued growth since a factory can supply sales offices in more than one territory if it is producing enough cars, you probably want to start your expansion by adding sales offices in territories close to your starting territory. The farther away from the factory your sales offices are, the higher the hidden incidental costs such as transportation fees will be for getting the cars to the showrooms. Because of this, it might not be a good idea to try to supply all your world-wide sales offices from a single factory.

To open a new sales office, go to the Main Factory Screen and click on the Sales/Factories building. The Territory Map will appear. Click on the Territory you want to expand into. The Sales and Factory panels for that territory will appear. In the Sales Offices section, click on Open The cost of opening the new office will be immediately deducted from your company's funds. If you want to shut down a sales office, click on Close. Closing a sales Office is not free - it costs one-half of what it cost to establish the office in the first place, and as with Open the money is deducted immediately. Therefore,the game will ask you to confirm any office openings or closings. Since the deduction from your company's funds takes place straight away and cant be undone, decisions to open and close offices should be made with some care. You can open up to ten sales offices in any one territory. New icons will appear on the territory map each time you establish a sales office or factory in a new territory.

Opening a new factory is very similar to opening up a new sales office. Click on Raise to establish a Level One factory in that territory. Clicking on Raise again will improve the level of your factory by one. A higher level factory is more efficient, but expansion gets progressively more expensive as the factory level increases. Clicking on Lower will downsize your factory at a cost of one third the price of expansion. As with sales offices, costs for improving or downsizing your factories are immediately deducted from your company funds
Pricing and Supply on a Global Scale

Once you have more than one model of car to sell, more than one factory producing your cars, and more than one territory to sell them in, pricing and supply become more complicated. The possible strategies for arranging your supply lines and setting your price strategies multiply enormously.

To set up new supply lines for a territory, or change existing ones, go to the Main Factory Screen and click on the Sales/Factories building. The Territory Map will appear. Click on the territory where you want to adjust your supply lines or prices. The Sales Office/Factory panel will appear. Each territory has its own panel, so make sure you're in the right territory before you start making changes. If you wind up in the wrong territory, clicking on Prev and Next will allow you to cycle through territories until you find the right one. Clicking on List from any territory panel will give you a summary of the number of sales offices and the level of the factory, if any, in each territory.

In the Sales Offices section of the panel, click on Detail, then on Supply Line to get the three slot lettered list of supply lines for that office. If there is no factory in your new sales area, you will have to arrange to have the cars shipped in from elsewhere. Click on one of the three lines to highlight it, then click on the plus and minus buttons to cycle through the available territories until you find the one you want. Naturally, you have to have a factory established in a territory before you can use it as a supply line. To stop shipping cars, cycle through the territories until you find the "None" option. You may remove the automatic in territory supply line from a factory in the same area, if you wish.

When your supply lines are set, click on Price. You will have to set the initial price for each separate model of car you want to sell from that office using Single mode as described earlier. The other three buttons can be used to make more sweeping changes in the prices of your cars.

Clicking on Model allows you to raise or lower the cost of a particular model of car in every territory. It doesn't matter which territory panel you are currently using - the change will be applied everywhere that model is being sold. Use the plus and minus keys or direct keyboard input to change the price on that model by percentage of the current cost, not by dollar amount. To lower the price, click on the minus key until you get negative numbers.

Clicking on Territory changes the price for every model of car being sold in the current territory. Again, the change is in percentage of the current prices, not dollar amount. Similarly clicking on Global allows you to adjust the prices on every model in every territory.

Note that if you are selling a particular model of car in a certain territory there must be a supply line going to that territory from a factory which is making that particular model of car. It's pointless to tell your salespeople to sell "Megabux Electras" if none of the factories that are supplying them with cars are producing Electras.

Once you've supplied your new sales area with cars, and set the pricing strategy, be sure to remember to head over to marketing and spend some advertising money in that new territory, if you want your cars to sell.
Using the Bank

The bank is the place to go if you are expecting a cash crunch, are looking to finance a costly new expansion, or want to put some of your money away to accrue interest for a while. To get to the bank, go to the Main Factory Screen and click on Administration. When the Administration Office appears, click on the phone. The banking panel will pop up.

The top section of the panel shows your current funds (in Checking), your funds in savings, and the current yearly interest rate accrued on your savings. (Your checking account does not earn interest). To transfer money from checking to savings, click on Check. A keyboard input box will appear for you to enter the amount of money you want to transfer. Likewise to shift money from savings to checking, click on Save and enter the amount.

The bottom section of the panel shows your current loans, and the yearly interest rate the bank will charge you for the use of its money. To take out a loan, click on Loan and enter the amount in the keyboard input box. If the bank agrees to the loan, the money will be added to your checking account. If the loan is denied, the box will clear when you press enter, and you'll have to try again. Click on Term to set the length of time you want the loan to cover. This will determine the size of your monthly payments.

The minimum payment on your loan will be deducted from your checking account automatically at the end of each month. If you want to pay more than the minimum in a given month, click on Repay and enter in the amount. It will be deducted from your checking account and the amount remaining on your loan will be reduced.
CHARTING YOUR PROGRESS

So by now you've hired people, put them to work in the factories and in your research department, advertised your product, set the price tag, and got the cars shipped to the showroom. Maybe you've even expanded your operations already. Your cars are selling, but you need to plan for the future. Or perhaps your cars aren't selling, and you need to figure out where the problem lies. Your trusty staff of researchers and accountants stands ready to assist your business decisions with a wide variety of reports and graphs to show you just how well your company is or isn't doing. (Note: Some additional reports and graphs may have been added to DETROIT since this document went to press. Please see the Technical Supplement and Tutorial booklet for details.)
Feedback: Gauging Your Progress with Reports.

Reports give you a picture of how well your company is doing in the short term. Each report shows the figures for the month just past, and only for that one month. To get reports, enter the Administration Office screen and click on the pile of papers in the centre of the desk. (if you do this in the first month, you will see that there are no reports available, since you have not started production yet). A menu of available reports in the first two columns and graphs in the third one. Click on one of the report buttons to bring up that report. All reports are free with the exception of the Demand report, which must be commissioned from an outside research agency and paid for when ordered. Click on the stack of papers under the red arrow pictured at the right end of the info bar to close a particular report or graph.

Many of the reports and graphs have word-toggles you can click on to obtain more information or change the way the information is presented for viewing. all text that appears in red is associated with a toggle and may be clicked on to change the display. When you are finished reading reports, click on Done to return to the Administration Office.
PROFIT/LOSS

The Profit/Loss Report is the most basic indicator of your company's health. In addition to being available through the Report menu, these figures are automatically presented to you at the start of each new month. The first column shows you your company's itemised expenses, while the second shows your income by territory. Click on Income to toggle your view of your profits between model and territory.
TERRITORY

This report gives you detailed information on how well you are doing in each territory in which you have an installation. Click on the territory name to cycle through your territories (only those areas in which you have sales offices or factories will appear) There are five columns of information on this screen, each of which can be toggled between two different sets of information. To toggle the column, click on the column header
Toggles:

First column:    model name/model type
Second column:   the number of assembly lines  making each car/the price of 
                 the car in that territory
Third column:    the number of cars built in that territory in the previous 
                 month/the labour costs for making each car
Fourth column:   the number of cars sold in that territory  in the previous 
                 month/the material costs for making each car.
Fifth column:    the number of cars in stock in that territory/ the  profit 
                 made on each car at the current price

MODEL

This report tells you how well each of your models is doing in each territory. Click on the model name to cycle through your current models. There are four columns of information on this sheet, each of which can be toggled between two sets of information. To toggle the column, click on the column header. (The column titled "Territory" does not toggle)
Toggles:

Second column:   the number of assembly lines making each car/ the price  of
                 the car in that territory.
Third column:    the number of cars built in that territory in  the previous 
                 month / the labour costs for making each car.
Fourth column:   the number of cars sold in that  territory in the  previous 
                 month / the materials costs for making each car
Fifth column:    the number of cars in stock in that  territory/ the  profit 
                 made on each car at the current price

COMPARE

This report is your main source of information on how well your competition is doing. from this report you can see the expenses, income, and profit or loss margin for each of your three competitors. (There are no toggles on this screen.)
MARKET T

This report shows your marketing expenses arranged by territory. Click on the territory name to cycle through the territories. Click on the word "Territory" to toggle the display between the sums for each territory to the total sums for all territories.
MARKET M

This report is very similar to Market T, except that your marketing expenses are arranged by media type. Click on the media type to cycle through the available media. Click on the word "Media" to toggle the display between the sums for each media type to the total sums for all media.
DEMAND

This report is the only report that costs you money to acquire. To obtain a demand report, select a car model to get a report on by clicking on it, then click Use. You may get a demand report on only one model per month. Select the territories you wish a report on by clicking on them. You may select as many territories as you like, at a cost of $100 per territory.

Click on Use to order the report. The game will ask you to confirm the order. when you do so the cost will be immediately deducted from your company's funds and the demand report will appear on the screen showing you how many cars could have been sold in that territory in the past month. The demand in a particular territory may change from one month to the next based on your competitor's actions, your own advertising, or other factors. Once ordered, the demand report cannot be changed until the next month - you may not change the model type or add to or subtract from the territories list.

The second and subsequent times you order a demand report, you will first be given the option of ordering a New report or viewing the last demand report you purchased (click on Old). Only the last report is available.
DISTRIBUTION

This report shows you the supply lines for each of your sales offices. Click on the territory name to cycle through the territories. By clicking on any column heading you can change the display to show you the transportation costs involved in maintaining each supply line.
Analysis: Finding Trends Over Time with Graphs

Graphs allow you to gauge your company's progress over an extended period. The information available in the graphs is more concise and therefore less detailed than the information you can get from reports. Graphs can be accessed from the same place reports are accessed. Click on one of the buttons in the third column of the Reports/Graphs menu to bring up a graph. Click on the stack of papers icon at the right side of the info bar to return to the Reports/Graphs menu, and click Done to return to the Administration Office
Profit

The vertical axis on this graph shows you your profits for each month, compared to those of your competitors. By clicking on the scale indicator for the vertical axis, you can toggle the scale for a range of settings from tens of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. Only those scales which are appropriate for the profit levels shown will be available, however, so if the most any company made in any month shown was $2000, you will not be able to change the scale to anything greater than thousands of dollars.

The horizontal axis displays seven months of profit records. A year's worth of records are kept stored at a time. To access months not currently visible on the screen, click on the first or last month displayed.
Production

The vertical axis on this graph shows you how many cars you and your competitors built each month. The vertical axis scale can be changed to range from tens to hundreds of millions of cars produced per month. Only those scales which are appropriate for the production levels shown will be available, however, so if no company produced more than sixty cars in any month shown, the scale will not go above tens of cars.

As with profits, the horizontal axis displays seven months worth of production records, and up to a year can be viewed by clicking on the first or last month displayed to scroll the printout.
Sales

The vertical axis on this graph shows you what your income from car sales is for each month, compared to those of your competitors. The numbers shown are for total income over all models of cars being produced. The vertical axis scale can be changed to range from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales per month. Only those scales which are appropriate for the sales levels shown will be available.

As with profits, the horizontal axis displays seven months' worth of sales records, and up to a year can be viewed by clicking on the first or last month displayed to scroll the printout.
Subsys Level

This graph shows you what level of advancement your automobile subsystems have achieved, relative to those of your competitors. The vertical axis shows the percentage of the level possible in the game that you have reached for each of the seven systems. There is a built in limit to the rate at which you can acquire new technology through research, so you should not expect to reach 100% quickly, even if you put maximum investment into your research department.

The horizontal bar shows each of the seven systems, abbreviated as follows: ENG = Engines, BRA = Brakes, SUS = Suspension, COO = Cooling, BOD = Bodies, SAF = Safety, and LUX = Luxury.
DETROIT - KEYBOARD COMMANDS

The keyboard commands for DETROIT have been set up to be as straightforward as possible for players who can't (or don't wish to) use a mouse, or for players who find some aspects of the game easier to work with through the keyboard. Most of the game can be played from the keyboard by following a few simple rules. A few screens, however require special information.
Command Buttons:

Nearly all commands which are represented through mouse command buttons can be executed from the keyboard by pressing the letter key highlighted on the button itself. For plus and minus buttons, use the plus and minus keys except (or those on the second design screen (see accompanying diagram).
Lettered Lists:

Press the letter of the item you want to select it from a lettered list. In some cases the item can be deselected by pressing the letter a second time.
Exiting Screens:

Press Escape to exit the current screen. Each time the key is pressed, you will go back one level, so it may be necessary to press it more than once to get all the way out. In many places, pressing D (for "Done") will also allow you to exit.
Archives:

To access the archives, go to the Main Factory screen and press C.
Model Testing:

To test your new car designs, press the first letter of each test desired. (Acceleration = A, Braking = B, and so on) Press T to select all the tests, and R to run.
Reports and Graphs
Profit/Loss:

To toggle from income by territory to income by model, press T.
Territory:

To toggle each column of information, press the number of that column (i.e. to toggle the third column, press 3). To cycle through the territories, press N.
Model:

To toggle each column of information (ignoring the first which does not toggle), press the number of that column. To cycle through the territories, press N.
Market T:

Press T to see marketing totals. Press N to cycle through the territories.
Market M:

Press T to see marketing totals. Press N to cycle through the media types.
Distribution:

Press N to cycle through the territories. Press 1 to toggle between supply lines and transportation expenses.
GAME TOOLS

F4    Save Game
F5    Jump To Administration
F6    Jump To Sales/ Factories
F7    Jump To Research
F8    Jump To Marketing
F9    Jump To Design
F10   Jump To Factory
Esc   Close Report

ADMINISTRATION

P     Personnel
F     Files
R     Reports/Graphs
B     Bank

MARKETING

T     Television
L     Marketing List
B     Billboards
S     Sporting Events
M     Magazines and Newspapers
R     Radio

RESEARCH

B     Brakes Detail
C     Cooling Detail
S     Suspension Detail
A     Safety Detail
E     Engine Detail
R     Research Menu
L     Luxury Detail

DESIGN PAGE TWO

1     Previous Engine
2     Next Engine
3     Previous Brake
4     Next Brake
5     Previous Suspension
6     Next Suspension
7     Previous Cooling
8     Next Cooling

TERRITORY MAP

A     Northern Europe
B     Southern Europe
C     East Europe
D     North East USA
E     South West USA
F     South East USA
G     North West USA
H     Canada
I     South America
J     Indonesia
K     Australia
L     Africa
M     China
N     Japan
O     India
P     Middle East

NEWS! EXTRA GAME FEATURES! READ THIS, DON'T IGNORE IT!!!

Several features were added to the game after it shipped, and a couple were modified. Here are the details, plus some clarifications of existing, unchanged rules. We also have an apology to make. In order to print this file:

1) Turn on your printer
2) Change into the directory that you installed DETROIT to. So, if you installed DETROIT into the default directory, type CD\DETROIT
3) Type PRINT README.TXT
MODEM PLAY

Just before the launch of the game, problems were discovered in the modem play module. Rather than delay the launch, we decided to ship the game with the modem option removed, and make a fixed version available free to all users as soon as it is ready. We apologise deeply for this, and hope you understand that everyone WILL be able to get this option soon, and for free. The fastest way to get hold of this update is to download it. It will be available on our own BBS and on CompuServe & Genie. We will make announcements on these boards as soon as the update is ready. Again, we really are sorry.
DIFFICULTY OPTIONS

After you select the START option, you will see the DIFFICULTY MENU.

This gives you several levels of difficulty at which you can play the game. When following the TUTORIAL, select the MEDIUM difficulty button.
SOUND EFFECTS

On slower machines, playing sound effects may slow the game further, so you may wish to turn sound effects off. Also, AdLib samples play the quickest, so owners of AdLib compatible cards (e.g. SoundBlasters), may wish to use the SETUP program, and choose AdLib as their sound card.
STRIKE RESOLUTION MENU

If your workers go on strike due to low wages, you will be presented with the Strike Resolution Menu. This presents you with the workers' wage demands and a box for you to make a counter offer. If the workers accept the offer, you have avoided a strike. If not they strike, and will produce nothing that month. The Strike Resolution Menu will return every month until the strike is resolved.
WORLD WAR I, THE GREAT DEPRESSION, WORLD WAR II, OIL CRISIS

During the World Wars, the Depression and the 1970's oil crisis, the Demand for your automobiles will fall drastically, so don't be surprised by sudden cuts in profit.
AUTOMATION & WAGES

The amount which you pay each assembler reflects not only their actual salary, but also all of the equipment which you have in your factory for them to use, so they may seem high. Also, over time, each factory you own will become more and more efficient. This reflects the effect of modernised equipment and automation. However, this modern hardware will cost you: the amount you pay per assembler will rise steadily, over and above inflation.
PUBLIC DOMAIN TECHNOLOGY

Technology becomes publicly available if 3 companies have developed it not 2.
UPDATING MODELS

When you Update an existing model, any existing stock will be converted into stock of the new model. For this, you will be charged a fee equal to twice the difference in the Material Costs between the old and new model.
MODEL'S OVERALL RATING AND MATERIAL COST

On the top left hand side of the Car Design screen, you will now see the Model's Overall Rating and Material Cost.
BODY BUTTON

The BODY Button, to the right of the TYPE Button, represents the FOUR basic body styles available for your car designs.
BUY BUTTON

If you wish, you may now buy a car design from a design team outside of your company. This will cost a substantial amount. To do this, use the BUY button, at the top left corner of the Car Design screen.
BODY TECHNOLOGY LEVELS

As you research new Body Technology Levels you will be able to design new types of cars, such as Compacts.
CHECKING & SAVINGS

In the Banking Menu, the CHECK button moves money from your Savings to your Checking account. The SAVE button does the opposite. These were reversed in the manual.
LOANS

In order to change the TERM of your loan, you must FIRST change the Term to the length you wish, and then request the loan. Once a loan has been taken, there can be no negotiating a new Term.
MEGA-MENU

A new Menu has been added to the game. It combines all the menus in the Sales & Factory screen into one. Once you become comfortable with the Menus in the Sales & Factory screen, you may find this one to be quicker. Because of the number of buttons on this screen, it was impossible to include any keyboard hot keys, so you will need a mouse to use it.
STOP BUTTON

On the left side of the Factory Menu is the STOP button. This will free all workers on a line, and clear the Model being produced by that line. To use the button, highlight the line you wish to affect, and hit the STOP button.
CLOSING SALES OFFICE & FACTORIES

Closing a Sales Office or Factory earns you money. A Sales office that is Closed will generate $2,500, while a Factory that is Lowered will generate 1/3 of what it would cost you to buy that factory.
SUBSYSTEM REPORT GRAPH

The Subsystem Graph represents Technology currently being INCLUDED in a production vehicle and not those Technologies that have been developed but not incorporated in a production vehicle.
PRINTING REPORTS

You may only print reports that have a printer icon below the exit report button. This includes all written reports, but not the Graph reports.
NUMBER PAD

In order to use the Number Pad on your keyboard, you must have the NUMLOCK key activated.
DETROIT - TUTORIAL
QUICK START TUTORIAL

This tutorial is meant for the player who wants to get started playing DETROIT right away. If you follow it step by step, it will take you through the first month of a typical game and show you how to control all of the major elements you'll need to get your business going. Once you 're familiar with the basics, you'll probably want to consult the manual to get all the details and learn about those features not covered here.

Precise numbers to use for various aspects of the game (worker wages, car prices, and so on) have been deliberately left out of this tutorial. Many players prefer to discover the best numbers to use through trial and error. If you would like to have some numbers to ensure that you will make a profit in the early stages of the game, please see the card included elsewhere in the game package.

This tutorial assumes that you are playing DETROIT with a mouse. If not please see the Keyboard Command Card included in the game materials for the keyboard equivalents of the Mouse commands. When the tutorial says to click on a command use the left mouse button unless the instructions specifically say otherwise. Clicking on the right mouse button will usually allow you to exit the current screen or panel; use this if you accidentally wind up somewhere you don't want to be while you are following this tutorial.

DETROIT is a turn-based game, so you don't have to rush while working through this tutorial. Take your time.
Getting Started

Start DETROIT by following the instructions in the Installation and Loading section of this booklet. You can click any mouse button to move through the title screens quickly, if you wish. You will see the Start Options panel superimposed on the Main Factory Screen (which will be described in a moment). Click on the Start button.

The Player Setup panel will appear. It should show Player 1 as human (that's you, we hope) and Players 2 through 4 as the computer. You don't want to change this now, so just click on Done.

Next, you will see the Territory Map with the sixteen game territories shown in different colours. (You may see some animation on this screen, and on most of the other screens in the game. Don't worry about it - nothing is happening to your game. It's just there for your amusement so relax and enjoy it.) Put the mouse pointer on the North-eastern section of the USA (which is brown) and click.

A keyboard input box will appear for you to enter the name of your company. You can press Enter to accept the default name ("Company 1") if you want but that's pretty dull, so we suggest you choose something more interesting. The name can be up to fifteen characters and contain letters or numbers. When you start typing, the default name will automatically vanish and your new name will appear. Press Enter when you've finished.

A similar panel will appear asking you to name your first car model. Again press Enter to accept the default or just start typing to give it a different name. Press Enter when you're done, and the Main Factory Screen will appear.

At the start of the game, you have $60,000 in funds and one fully designed and tested model of car to sell. You begin with one factory in your starting territory which has one assembly line running, producing your first car model, and one sales office in your starting territory, which is selling it. You have enough assembly workers hired to man your single assembly line, and a small number of research technicians on your payroll waiting to be assigned to development projects. You will start out with some initial numbers automatically assigned for workers, wages, prices, and so forth, but these numbers, while they may be reasonable values to use, are not optimal. You'll have to experiment (or refer to the enclosed card) to determine which numbers are actually best.
Take a Look at Your Factory

The Main Factory Screen is where you will access the various departments that make up your company. Most of the screen shows the factory itself with its six buildings. Clockwise from the top right, they are: Design (light blue), Research (pink), Sales/Factories (blue roof and skylight), Administration (grey), Archives (red brick), and Marketing (brown with billboard) in the centre.

At the bottom of the screen is the wooden Info Bar. From the left, the Info Bar shows:

    * The current month and year of your game (it should say "Jan 1908")
    * Your company's current funds ($60,000)
    * The rectangular Message Box, which will often tell you useful things
    * Your company name
    * The six toolbar icons (see below)
    * The Month End button (with the calendar grid pictured on it)

On this screen, and on most of the other main screens in the game, there are mouse command buttons worked into the scenery itself. The manual will give you a complete list of all the buttons on each screen and what they do, but for this tutorial we'll only be telling you about the ones you need to use right now. You can tell when you've found a hidden button on the screen because the mouse pointer will change shape from a red "X" to a green arrowhead, and a description of that button will appear in the Message Box on the Info Bar.
Design a New Car

Although in a real game you won't want to start off by building new cars right away, for the purposes of teaching you the game, that's where this tutorial is going to start.

Move the mouse pointer over the Design building, checking in the Message Box to make sure you have the right building, and click. The first page of the Design Worksheet will appear. Your first car will be showing in the display box in the top centre. You can have up to sixteen current designs at one time. The black numbers in the upper right corner of the display window tell you which design you're currently looking at (right now it should say "1/16", since you are looking at your first (and only) stored design out of the sixteen maximum you can save as current.)

The other areas on this screen tell you some of the specifics of the car you are currently looking at. It has a four-cylinder 747 cc engine, a hand brake, and not much else. It's of the "family sedan" type.

To start a new car, click on the button marked New, located at the top of the column to the left of the display window. The display window will go blank, and the top right corner of the display window will change to read "New". The first thing to do is to set a body type for your car. There are four basic body types: two-door, four-door, van, and truck. Your new car will be a two-door so click on the button marked Body until you see "Body Style: 1" appear just below the display window.

Next, click on Type to select the functional type of car you're trying to build. The type indicator is just below the button marked "Next." Keep clicking on Type to cycle through types of cars you can build until you come to Family Sedan, and stop. Your new product will be a two-door family sedan to go with your four-door family sedan.

Now, you need to design the body of your new car. Under the display window, find the three-letter list. The first slot should be highlighted. This slot controls the design of the front section of your car. Click on the mouse button marked with a Plus sign, and watch the car change. (Use the Minus key to back up) Stop on the choice called Front 2. Now click on the second slot to highlight it, and use the Plus and Minus keys to look at the options for the centre of your car. Select Middle 2. In the same way, highlight the third slot and set the back of the car to Rear 3.

To move to the second page of the design worksheet, click on the Part button (second from the top in the column at the left side of the display window). On this screen, you can see pictures of the internal components of your car. At the moment, you only have one model of engine and one type of brake available and none of the other four systems that might be included (Suspension, Cooling, Safety Options, and Luxury Options.) Later, if you invest in Research, you will have more to choose from, but for now your new family sedan is going to have to have the same internal systems as your original family sedan. Go to the box marked "Engine", and click once on the Plus button. This will bring up a picture of your engine, a 747 cc four-cylinder, and install it into your new design. Go to the box marked "Brakes" and click once on the Plus button to add a hand brake to the car. Then click on Body in the upper right-hand corner of the screen to return to the first page of the design worksheet.

Your new family sedan is now ready to be tested. Click on Make to instruct your technicians to build a prototype car. A keyboard input box will appear. Type in the name of your new model of car and press Enter. When you are asked to confirm the building of the car, click on Yes. The Testing Screen will appear.
Note

If you want to make an alteration to a design that already exists (don't do this now!) you can do so by bringing up the old design, making the changes, and then clicking on Make. When the keyboard input box with the name of the original design appears, simply press Enter. You will be asked to confirm that you want to replace the old design with the modified design. If you click on Yes, your old design will be removed and replaced with the modified car.
Test Your New Car

Before putting your new car on the market, you'll want to have it tested to see how well it's made. For simplicities sake you're going to order the full range of possible tests. At the bottom of the column of readouts on the left side of the screen, click on the button marked Test All. Notice on the printout at the bottom right that the testing costs have been added to the total. Just above the printout click on the red button marked Run.

The materials and testing costs will be immediately subtracted from your company funds, and the view screen at the top right will show you what happens as your new car is put through its paces. The Overall rating that appears near the bottom of the left column of readouts is a number on a scale of zero to one hundred. The closer the number is to one hundred, the better the car performed. When the tests are completed, click on the Return to Factory box (the square at the far right end of the Info Bar that has a silhouette of the factory pictured on it.)
Hire Some Workers

From the Factory Screen, click on the Administration building (grey, at lower left). The Administration Office appears. Move the pointer to the door on the far wall, check that the Message Box reads Personnel Office, and click. The Personnel Menu will appear. There are two boxes on this panel, one for Assembly Workers and one for Technicians. You will notice that you already have some of each type of worker on the payroll. Your technicians are listed as idle because you haven't assigned them to projects yet (you'll do that in a moment.)

In the Assembly Workers box, click on Hire. A new kind of panel, called a keyboard input box, will appear. this panel will have a text entry window and various mouse command buttons which will be different on different keyboard input boxes. Click on the Plus sign to add assembly workers to your payroll. (You can hold down the button to scroll the number more quickly.) Click on Done, and you will see the totals change. Your new assembly workers are on the payroll, but are still idle.

In the same box, click on Wages. Set the assembly workers' wages in the same way that you set the number of workers. Then click on Hire in the Technicians box and hire some technicians, and click on Wages to set their pay. Click on the Done button in the upper right-hand corner to exit the Personnel Menu and then click on the Return to Factory box.
Note

In addition to Factories and Research Labs, you also have Sales Offices as part of your company (as you'll see in a moment.) However, your Sales Offices are automatically staffed - you do not need to assign workers to your Sales Offices.
Start a New Assembly Line

From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Sales/Factories building (blue roof with skylight, on the lower right.) The Territory Map will appear. You will see a light blue Sales Office building and a black Factory building near the North eastern USA, your starting territory. Click on the North-eastern USA territory to bring up the Sales and Factories Menu for that area.

Your next step is to get your factory producing your new family sedan. First, you want to upgrade your factory's equipment so that it can produce cars more efficiently. In the Factory box, click on Raise. This increases the level of technology in use in your factory, at a cost which increases at the level of your factory increases this cost will be immediately deducted from your funds when the factory is improved, so you will be asked to confirm your expansion order. Click on Yes, and your factory will go to technology level two.

Next, in the Factory box, click on Detail. A panel will appear showing you the five assembly lines that could run in that factory. Line 1 should already show that you have a number of workers putting together your first model of car. Click on Line 2 to highlight it, then click on Model. A lettered list will appear of all your sixteen current models of car (only the first two slots will have models in them at this point, of course, because you've only created two models.) Click on your new family sedan to highlight it, then click on Use. Your new family sedan will be started on that line. Click on Assign to put workers on that line. Use the Plus button to put the idle workers you hired in Personnel to work building your new family sedan. Click Done when you finish. Your car will now be produced.
Sell Your New Car

In the Sales Offices box on the Sales and Factories Menu, click on Detail. A lettered list will appear, showing you what cars are on sale at that office and for what price. A check mark by the name of the model indicates that it is being offered for sale. You will see that your original model is already on sale for a certain price, and that your new family sedan is on the list but not being sold (since the box is not checked.) To start selling your new design, click on the list to highlight the new family sedan, then click on Price. A keyboard input box will appear.

While you can use the Plus and Minus buttons to set prices for your cars (as with other keyboard input boxes), you will probably find that it's tedious to wait for the numbers to scroll up to the right price. Instead, simply type in the number and press Enter. This alternate method of entering numbers will work on all keyboard input boxes. Set prices for both of your models, and click on Done when you finish. Your new family sedan is now on sale in the North-eastern USA, alongside your original model.

Click on Supply to set the supply lines so your dealers will have cars delivered to their showrooms. A panel with a three-slot list will appear, showing where the cars on sale at that location are being shipped from. You have a factory in the North-eastern USA, so the first supply line for each model is automatically set so that cars come in from that area. Since the supply line is already set you don't need to change anything here, so click on Done to get out of Supply and then click on Exit to get out of the Sales Office Detail box.
Open a New Sales Office

Now you're going to expand your operations a little by opening a new sales office in a different territory, one where you don't have a factory. On the Sales and Factories Menu, click twice on Next. This button, and the Prev button, allow you to cycle through the sixteen territories in the game (each territory has a different menu.) You should now be at the menu for the South-eastern USA territory.

In the Sales Offices box, click on open. Opening a new office costs money so you will be asked to confirm your decision. Click on Yes, and the cost will be automatically deducted from your company's funds. Click on Detail. You will see that neither of your cars is being sold in the Southeast yet. Highlight your family sedan, and set the price the same way you did above. Click on Supply and notice that you don't have any supply lines set up to bring your cars from the factory to the showroom. the first slot on the supply list should already be highlighted. Click on the Plus button. "NE USA" should appear on the list. Your family sedans will now be shipped from your factory in the North-eastern USA to your sales office in the Southeast. Click on Done to return to the Sales Detail Box. Highlight your new family sedan, set the price, and start a supply line running from your factory in the North-eastern USA just as you did for your family sedan. Then click on Exit to get out of the Sales Office Detail Box.

Just to see a summary of your company's facilities, click on List. A panel will appear showing you where you have sales offices and factories. You should see one sales office and a level two factory in the North-eastern USA and a sales office in the South-eastern USA. Click on Done to close the panel, and then on Done to close the main Sales and factories Menu. Click on the Return to Factory box to get back to the main screen.
Invest in Research

In order to get new technology for your cars, you need to invest in research and development. You have hired Technicians, but you need to assign them to projects. Move the mouse pointer to the Research building (pink, lower right) and click. The Research Screen will appear.

Put the mouse pointer over the technician at the bottom centre of the screen and click to bring up the Research Menu. You will see a list of the seven automobile parts that go into making up your cars. Click on Engines to highlight that component, then click on Assign. Click on the Plus sign to assign five technicians to do research on automobile engines, then click on Done. In the same way, highlight Brakes and assign five technicians, then do the same thing with Suspension. When you've finished, click on Done to exit the Research Menu and then on the Return to Factory box to return to the main screen.
Fire Some Workers

In order to fire some workers, you first have to take them off of their current assignments so that they become idle. Click on Sales/Factories, and then click on North-eastern USA to bring up the Sales and factories Menu for that territory. In the factories box, click on Detail. Click on Line to highlight it, then click on Free. A keyboard input box will appear. Use the Plus button to enter the number five and press Enter. You will see that the number of workers on the line decreases, and the number next to "Idle Workers" goes to five. Click on Done to get out of the Factory Detail box, then Done again to exit the Sales and Factories panel, then click on the Return to Factory box.

From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Administration building. In the Administration Office, click on the Personnel door to bring up the Personnel Menu. In the Assembly Workers box on the Personnel Menu, click on the button marked Fire. A keyboard input box will appear. Use the Plus key to enter the number five in the box and press Enter. You will see that those five idle workers have been taken off the payroll and added to the Available Workers group. Click on Done to exit the Personnel Menu and then on the Return to Factory box to return to the main screen.
Advertise Your Wares

If you want people to buy your cars, you have to advertise them. From the Main Factory Screen, click on Marketing (the brown building in the centre.) The Marketing Office screen will appear. You will need to spend money on marketing separately for each territory in which you have a sales office. Money spent on advertising is subtracted from your company funds at the end of each month.

Move the mouse pointer over the billboard with the car on it (outside the window) and click. You can now use the keyboard input box to spend money on billboard advertisements. Click on Prev or Next to cycle through the territories until NE USA is showing. Click on the Plus sign to spend money on billboards (the cost will go up by preset amounts for each type of advertising) Click on Next until you find the panel for SE USA, and again click on the Plus sign, then click on Done. You are now advertising your cars on billboards across the entire Eastern United States.

Move the mouse pointer over the papers on the desk and click. From this panel you can spend money to advertise in newspapers and magazines. Again there is a separate panel for each territory. Use the Next and Prev buttons to locate the North-eastern USA panel. The slot for Newspapers should already be highlighted. Click on the Plus button to spend some money on newspaper ads. Click on Business to highlight that line, then click on the Plus button again to spend some money advertising in business magazines. Change to the panel for the South-eastern USA, spend money on newspapers and business magazines in that territory the same way you did in the Northeast, then click on Done. Click on the Return to factory box to get back to the main screen.
End Your Turn

Now you are ready to end the month and see how well your business strategies have done for your company. Click on the Month End box (the square at the right end of the Info Bar with the calendar grid on it.) The Month End summary panel will appear. Each of the actions you have taken within the past month will have a red check mark by it. Actions you have not taken will not be marked. Since you have done everything you need to this month, click on Yes to confirm that you want to end the month. (If you click on No you will be returned to the Main Factory Screen to take more actions.)

The screen will dim briefly to show time passing. Depending on how well you did in the first month, you may see a Newsflash - a panel showing a newspaper and giving you some additional information. To continue after you've read the Newsflash, click any mouse button. If you do not receive a Newsflash, you will go directly to your Profit/Loss statement (see below.)
Check Your Progress

At the start of every new month, you will be presented with your company's Profit/Loss statement - the most basic indicator of your company's health. The first column details your expenses for the current month, while the second details your income. The total profit or loss for the month appears at the bottom of the left column.

Initially, the right column shows you your Income by Territory. Move the mouse pointer over the column heading that says Income and click. The column will then display your Income by Model instead. Click again on the column heading to return to income by territory.

When you are done examining your balance sheet, click on the Close Report box (the square now appearing at the right end of the Info Bar, showing a stack of papers with a left-pointing red arrow superimposed.) You will return to the Main Factory Screen to start your second turn.
Keep an Eye on the Competition

A useful thing to do at the start of each new turn is to check on how your competitors are doing. Find the Administration building again and click on it. When the Administration Office appears, move the mouse pointer over the papers spread out on the desk in the lower centre of the screen, and click. The Reports and Graphs Menu will appear. The fourth selection in the first column says Compare. Click on this button to bring up a report on your competitors profits and losses for the month. Your company appears at the top with your three rivals below. If you have done better than all or most of the competition you are off to a good start. If not, you may need to restructure your company.

When you are done reading the Competition Report, click on the Close Report box to return you to the Reports and Graphs Menu. Click on Done to close the menu and return you to the Administration Office screen.
Save Your Game

While still in the Administration Office, move the mouse pointer over the file cabinet at the right side of the screen and click. The File Management and Game Options Menu will appear. Click on the second button from the top, marked Save to bring up the Saved Game List. You can store up to twenty saved games. At this point, all the slots should read Empty, and the slot marked A should be highlighted. Click on this slot. A keyboard input box will appear. Type in a name for your game and press Enter. You will see a message that the game is being saved, followed by a message saying "Game Saved OK!" Right click to exit back to the Administration Office.

You can now continue this game, or start over and begin a new game. (To do this easily, return to the file cabinet in the Administration Office and click on Restart.)
Shortcuts for Quicker Navigation:
The Toolbar Icons

Once you are familiar with the basic purpose of each department you may find it faster and easier to navigate between them using the Toolbar Icons, the six small picture boxes that appear on the Info Bar just to the right of the Message Box. In order from left to right, they are:
Disk Icon:

Click here to go straight the Saved Game List and save your game.
Bar Graph Icon:

Click here to go to the Administration Office.
World Map Icon:

Click here to go to the territory map for Sales and Factories.
Drawing Tools Icon:

Click here to go to Research.
Newspaper Icon:

Click here to go to the Marketing office.
Auto Icon:

Click here to go to the Design worksheet

In addition, you may prefer to handle some aspects of the game with the keyboard instead. The keyboard commands can be found on the enclosed Keyboard Command Card.

This ends the Detroit Tutorial. For more details and additional game options, please refer to the Detroit Owner's Manual.
MANUAL NOTES AND NEW FEATURES
Notes
Firing Workers

In order to fire workers, you need to first make them Idle. Do this by using the Free buttons on the Research Menu and Factory Detail screens to remove workers from their current research projects or assembly lines. Then go to the Personnel Menu and use the Fire button to lay them off.
Car Colour

On the first page of the Design worksheet in the upper right-hand corner, is a colour grid. Use the greater-than and less-than arrows under the grid to cycle through the colours until you find one you like for your car. The colour of the car has no effect on how well it sells.
Design Worksheet

The layout of the buttons and displays on the first page of the Design worksheet have been altered from that described in the manual. No buttons have been removed or added.
Model Price

The Model Price button in the Sales Office Detail keyboard input box no longer changes the model price by a percentage. Instead, simply enter in the price in dollars for that model and the price will be changed to that value everywhere the car is being sold.
Close Reports Icon

The Close Reports Icon has been split into two buttons. The top half (stack of papers and arrow) functions as described in the manual. The bottom half which shows a printer, allows you to print out a hard copy of the report currently showing on the screen (See below in the Additions section for more on this option.)
Supply Lines and Marketing

When selecting territories to target for marketing or to use for supply lines, you will only see the territories in which you've put facilities.
Model Report

In the Model report, the numbers you can see for the cost to build the car are displayed even if the car is being built in another territory and shipped in. This is so you can see what profit you are making on the car in each territory, if you have it priced differently in different regions. So, for example, if you are selling your first model car in the South-eastern USA, but are building them in the North-eastern USA, you will still see building costs listed for the South-eastern USA, even though you are not actually building the cars there.
Car Types

Not all types of cars can be built at the start of the game. More modern types of cars (compacts, hatchbacks, and so on) will appear as time progresses.
New Features
Newsflashes

At times in the game, you will see a Newsflash at the end of the month. Newsflashes will describe current events that might be of interest to your company.
Updating Models

If you wish to update a model of car - for example, to put in a new brake system without starting from scratch on the Design worksheet, simply bring up the old model, make the change, and click on Make. When the name box appears with the old model name in it, press Enter. When you are asked if you want to replace the old design, click on Yes and the model will be updated. (The original design will be lost.)
Public Domain Technology

After two car companies have discovered a new technology, it will automatically become available to the other two car companies.
Printing Hard Copies of Reports

You can now get printouts of your company's reports if you have a printer compatible with the program. To print out a report, click on the Printer icon at the right end of the Info Bar, underneath the Close Reports icon. To print reports using the keyboard, press F3.
Strikes

If you do not keep your workers happy, they may go on strike and halt production. When this happens, a Strike Resolution panel will appear to give you options for how to settle the strike.
New Reports

There are three new Reports for you to use to gauge your progress.
Model Comparison.

Click on the Model Comp option to see reports on how your prices stack up against those of your competitors. Click on the territory name to change to other territories, on the model name to view other models of your cars, and on the competitor company's name to view the other competitors.
Consultant Report:

Click on Consultant to hire an outside expert to evaluate your company and its product line. This report, like the Demand report, needs to be purchased. Once the first report has been purchased, you can choose to view the most recent report you bought or to order a new report.
Media Review Report:

Click on Media Rev to see what the critics think of your current models. Click on the company name to see what they think of your competitors' products. Click on the page number to view the other pages of the report.
The Mega-Menu

A new option has been added to the Sales and Factories panel. Between the Sales Offices box and the Factories box is a button labelled Mega-Menu. Clicking on this button brings up a screen in which all the functions of the Sales Office Detail and the Factor Detail panels have been combined into one panel for easy reference and access. Once you are familiar with the game, you may find this panel to be more convenient to use than the normal panels.
STRATEGY HINTS

Save your game frequently at first in case disaster strikes.

Invest in research. It's worth it.

Be sure to advertise.

If a particular type of car isn't selling, it's because there's no demand for it. Some types of cars will not sell at all at the start of the game

Since there are historical aspect to DETROIT, not all territories will have a demand for cars at the start of the game. Demand will develop in more areas as time passes. Look out for Newsflashes telling you when a territory is ready to start buying.

Demand level varies by season. Plan accordingly

Demand always drops drastically during wartime.

If sales are poor, consider opening more sales offices, spending more on marketing, or improving your cars.

It's better to have several smaller factories than one large one. The more lines you have running, the greater variety of cars you can produce. Build the cars near the consumers to save money on transport fees.

There is an optimal number of workers for each assembly line and research project. If you go above that number, you will get less benefit from each new worker.

Improving the level of a factory allows you to make the same number of cars with fewer workers. It also allows you to fit more workers on a line without overcrowding them.

Don't hesitate to fire workers and stop assembly lines if you're building up too large a stock supply. While having a small stock its a good thing in case demand suddenly increases, too large a stock is a waste of resources.

Keep an eye on your labour cost for your assembly lines by checking the Model Report to see what you're spending. If you're spending too much, cut back on the number of workers.

Look after your workers. Pay them decent wages and give them benefits. Striking workers don't make you any money. Workers that get benefits are more productive.

Upgrade your cars whenever possible. Demand is higher for cars fitted with the cutting edge of technology. An expensive car with the latest options will sell better than a cheaper outmoded car. Obsolete cars won't sell.

Expand your company. Try to find territories where demands exists and where your competition isn't producing, and sell your cars there. A captive audience will pay more.

Keep your prices competitive, but be sure to make a decent profit. You're here to make money, not friends.
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                    DETROIT - THE OPEN ROAD - Part 1
                    =======================---------
                                                TYPED BY SHARD - DTL

INTRODUCTION
------------

To  the man on the street in the late nineteenth century, it was clear that
the horse was in all ways superior to the automobile.  The horse was almost
a  member  of  the  family.   It  was friendly, hard working and reproduced
itself,  could  survive  on  nothing  more than grass and water and, if its
owner  was  drunk or ill could find its own way home without guidance.  The
automobile  by  compasirson  was  noisy, unreliable, smelly, dangerous, and
constantly  in  need  of  repair.  It also required decent roads to run on,
which were in short supply in the Unites States at the turn of the century.

Yet,  despite  its  obvious  shortcomings,  within  a  hundred years of its
invention  the  automobile  totally  replaced  the  horse  as  a  means  of
transportation  in  most  Western nations.  In the process, it caused major
changes in society, changes unequaled by any other technological innovation
of  its  time.   It  opened doors between deeply divided urban and agrarian
communities,  single  handedly created the suburb, brought about the demise
of the blacksmith and the coachmaker, greatly expanded the tourist industry
by  giving  the  average  worker  unprecedented  freedom  to travel, turned
petroleum  into  a  critical  commodity,  and  spawned  a  host  of service
industries  devoted  to  automobile  care  and  maintenance.   In short, it
redesigned  the  face  of every nation to which it came, and no nation more
than the United States.

Although  the  automobile originated in Europe, it was in the United States
that  it  first  reached  its  full  potential.   From the year that the US
overtook  France  as  the  leading producer of automobiles to the time more
than  seventy  years  later  when  it  succumbed to the challenge of Japan,
America  was undisputed King of Cars, and the city of Detroit was the place
where  the  king  held  court.  By the fortunate accident of being the city
closest  to  the  homes  of  three  of  the most influential figures in the
history  of  the  American  car - Ransom Eli Olds, Henry Ford and William C
Durant - Detroit became the center of the new industry.  The city`s history
is  inextricably  linked  with that of the American automobile, sharing its
rise to glory and its fall from grace.

THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE
--------------------

The  coining  of  the  word  "automobile"  preceded  the development of the
genuine  item.   Frenchman  Jean  Joseph  Etienne  Lenoir built a two-cycle
internal  combustion  engine in 1860, and came up with the term (literally,
"It  moves  by  itself") to describe the vehicle he hoped to power with his
engine.   The actual automobile ended up being built by a group of men from
another country entirely, using an engine based on Lenoir`s design.

In  1876  a  German  engineer  named  Nikolaus  August Otto made a critical
breakthrough  by  successfully  modifying Lenoir's two cycle noncompression
power  unit into the first modern type four cycle, compressed fuel internal
combustion  engine.   The  four  cycle  "Silent  Otto" as it quickly became
known, was far more powerful and efficient than the two cycle engines built
previously,  and  had  a  higher  thermodynamic efficiency than the popular
steam  engine as well.  It was rapidly adopted for small power plants.  The
thought of using it to propel a vehicle seemed a natural extension, and two
of Otto's countrymen were soon captivated by the idea.

Benz and Daimler Go into Business

Credit for building the first gasoline engine automobile is generally given
to Karl-Friedrich Benz of Karlsruhe, Germany.  He constructed his first car
in  1884  and christened it the Motorwagon.  It was a three wheeled vehicle
with  a top speed of 10 mph.  Two years later Benz was granted a patent for
the world`s first practical automobile.

Only  a  few  months  after  Benz put his car together, a pair of engineers
working  for Nikolaus Otto also built a self-propelled vehicle using Otto`s
engine.   Their names were Gottlieb Daimler and William Maybach, and in the
next  few years they would be responsible for many significant improvements
on  Otto`s  basic  design.  It was Benz, engineering company, however, that
became the first to produce automobiles in the hope of selling them.  Up to
that  time  any vehicles that were built were strictly experimental models,
one  of  a kind items of interest onlt to their creators.  By 1888 Benz had
built a limited number of his cars, but found no buyers.  A year later both
Benz  and  Daimler  exhibited their cars at the Paris World Fair, where the
automobiles  were  received  with  a remarkable lack of interest.  The auto
industry was off to a slow start.

Two  years  after  the  disappointing  debut at the World Fair, Daimler and
Maybach  decided  to  start  making automobiles for sale and formed Daimler
Motoren  Gesellschaft  together.   By that time, Benz had started to find a
limited number of customers for his cars, mostly rich men who regarded them
as expensive toys and curiosities.

Meanwhile,  in  France, one of the few people who had been intrigued by the
possibilities  of  the automobile when he viewed it at the Paris World Fair
was  a  very successful bicycle manufacturer named Armand Peugeot.  Peugeot
was  an  engineer  by  training,  and  was  intrigued by the idea of a self
propelled  vehicle.  His first attempt to create one took place in 1889 and
resulted   in  a  steam  powered  tricycle.   Shortly  thereafter,  he  was
approached  by a man named Emile Levassor, who was building Daimler engines
in  France  through  a licensing agreement with Gottlieb Daimler.  Levassor
tried  to  sell  Peugeot on the overall superiority of the Daimler gasoline
engine  as  a power unit, and Peugeot, who had been having trouble with his
steamer,  was  not  difficult  to convince.  Workinhg together, the two men
constructed the first Peugeot gasoline-powered automobile in 1890.

The Automobile Gets Rolling

Peugeot  was  a good engineer and an even better salesman.  To interest the
diffident  public  in  his  cars,  he entered one in the big Paris to Brest
bicycle race in 1891.  The car completed the race at an average speed of 10
mph,  and  finished  dead  last.   In spite of the late finish, however the
event   was   a  stroke  of  advertising  genius,  for  it  was  the  first
long-distance  journey  ever  made be an automobile and no one had expected
the  vehicle  to  be  able  to finish at all.  The number of orders for the
Peugeot car soared.  By 1893 there was sufficient traffic on the streets of
Paris for the French police to institute the world`s first license plates.

In  1894  an event just for automobiles was held from Paris to Rouen, an 80
mile  course.   It  was  more of a publicity stunt than a race; awards were
given  for  nearly  every  conceivable category, and some went to cars that
didn`t  finish,  or  didn`t  even  start!   The officials received over 100
entries  although  only  26  vehicles showed up for the elimination trials.
Seventeen  of  those qualified and an additional eight were added in later,
making  a  field  of  25.  A steam tractor won with a speed of just over 11
mph,  but  it  was  disqualified  on  the  grounds that it wasn`t really an
automobile, so the prize went jointly to Peugeot and another carmaker named
Panhard.

The  following year, the event became a true race, with the course extended
to  732  miles,  and  speed  and  stamina  being the only qualities judged.
Twenty  cars  started,  of  which nine finished Those entries employing the
more  durable  gasoline engines badly outclassed the six steam powered cars
entered,  a  sign  of things to come.  The winning time was 48 hours and 48
minutes, or an average speed of about 15 mph.

The New Century

By the time of the turn of the century, the automotive industry was gaining
momentum.   In  1902,  France  produced  a  total  of  12,000 cars, a major
increase  over  the  few  hundred  built only seven years previous.  At the
Paris  motor Show that year, a car was exhibited that was capable of speeds
up to 50 mph.  The technology of the automobile was being rapidly improved,
with  old designs being perfected and new ones appearing yearly.  One, two,
four, and six cylinder engines were made, and the first V8 engine was built
for the 1903 Paris-Madrid race.

Travel  by  car  at  the  turn  of  the  century,  while it might have been
enjoyable to those with a sense of adventure, was far from a pleasure trip.
The only matter of real concern to early car designers was that the vehicle
have  a  reliable  propulsion  system, and all other issues were secondary.
Automobiles  lacked even the most rudimentary safety features, and were all
open  topped, offering no protection from the weather.  European roads were
in  a  sorry state of disrepair (though not by comparison to American roads
of the time, it must be admitted) and road maps were non-existent.

There  were  no  service  stations  or  garages.   Motorists  carried extra
gasoline  in  cans in the back of the car and, if the driver forgot to fill
his  reserves,  he might have to walk many miles to find a chemist carrying
fuel fit for his vehicle.  There were no schools that taught driving and no
standard  rules  of  the  road  -  learning  to drive was a trial and error
process,  mostly error.  No set of standard controls existed; most cars had
a  steering  wheel  and a brake lever, and little else, and the location of
those two obJects varied from car to car.  To make matters worse most early
motorists  were  rich men with next to no knowledge of mechanics.  They had
little  idea  how  to maintain or repair their cars when things went wrong,
which they often did.

THE AUTO COMES TO AMERICA

The  development  of  the  automobile took a somewhat different path in the
United  States  than it did in Europe.  The largest single factor affecting
this  was  the  condition  of  American roads, which was abominable.  While
Europe  had a long standing coach trade, resulting in reasonably good roads
in  most  countries,  the  U.S.  was largely agrarian at that time.  At the
turn  of  the  century,  only 171 miles of paved road existed in the entire
nation.

Americas First Automakers

The  Philadelphia  Exposition  of  1876  was  a  notable event for American
inventors.   Two  devices  were publicly displayed for the first time:  one
was  the  telephone,  by Mr.  Alexander Bell, and the other was a two cycle
gasoline  engine  built  by  Mr.   George Brayton.  A patent attorney named
George  B.   Selden  saw  the  device, conceived of the idea of using it to
propel  a  vehicle,  and  submitted  the  first  patent application for his
concept in 1879.  Selden`s car ran on liquid fuel and featured a clutch and
a  steering  wheel.   The  patent was granted in 1895 after many revisions;
Selden had delayed deliberatly hoping to keep the patent viable for as long
as  possible,  but  he  became  afraid  to  wait  any  longer because other
inventors   were  rapidly  conceiving  automobile  designs  of  their  own.
Although  he was granted the patent, there is no evidence that Selden built
any cars from his design until many years later.

If  you  lived in Lansing Michigan in 1886 and happened to be outside after
dark  on  a  summer`s  day,  you might have caught a glimpse of a machinist
named  Ransom  Eli  Olds  running  his  three wheeled steam car on the city
streets.   Olds, fearing embarrassment, always tested his early steamers at
night  when  he  hoped no one would be watching to see them break down.  In
1890  he built one with four wheels and sold it to a customer in India, but
the car was lost at sea and therefore never delivered.

An issue of Scientific American from the same year carried an article about
another  new  invention:   an electric car built by William Morrison of Des
Moines,  Iowa  that could carry up to seven people.  The publicity from the
article  generated over 16,000 inquiries.  It was an early indicator of the
size  of  the potential market for a practical car in America, but Morrison
wasn't  interested  in  exploiting  it  -  as  late as 1907 he declared, "I
wouldn`t give ten cents for an automobile for my own use.

John  W.   Lamber  of  Ohio  constructed  and  ran a three wheeled gasoline
powered  vehicle  in  1891.  The inventor offered to build them for sale to
anyone  who  wanted  one,  but  he found no buyers.  A year later Gottfried
Schloemer  from Milwaukee built another gasoline engine and installed it in
a  buggy;  today,  the  car  resides  in a Milwaukee museum and is still in
working  order.   But  since  neither  of  these  prototypes  was  entirely
successful,  oficial  credit  for  building Americas first gasoline powered
internal  combustion  automobile  is  usually  given to one of two parties:
either  Elwood Haynes with his partners, the Apperson brothers, or the team
of Charles and Frank Duryea, brothers from Springfield, Massachusetts.

Both  sets  of  inventors  built  their  cars in 1894, but the Duryeas took
things  a  step  further  in  the  next year, setting up a company to build
automobiles  for  sale.   The  vehicles  were  still  more curiosities than
anything else, however a year after the brothers founded their company, the
Barnum & Bailey Circus put a Duryea Motor Wagon on display as part of their
Freak Show, where it drew large crowds.

The Duryea Motor Company, although the first automaker to be even a limited
success, lasted only three years and built a total of thirteen cars.  Three
years  after  the founding of the company, the brothers quarreled, and then
closed  down  their  joint  business.  The rift between the Duryea brothers
never  closed,  and  they carried their grudges against each other to their
graves.

The First American Auto Races

H.   H.  Kohlsaat, publisher of the Chicago Times-Herald, was looking for a
publicity stunt.  Inspired by the Paris-Rouen and Paris-Brest races held in
France,  he  decided to sponsor America`s first automobile race in his home
city  in  the  year  1895.   He  hoped to give positive exposure to the new
horseless  carriage  and,  not incidentally, to his paper.  Kohlsaat staged
the  race  on  Thanksgiving  day, with several inches of slushy snow on the
ground, over a course of 54 miles, and offered a prize of $5,000.  Six cars
were  entered:   the  Duryea  brothers  buggy.   powered  by a one cylinder
gasoline  engine;  an  Electrobat  electric car; William Morrisons electric
carriage;  and  three cars based on the German Benz.  The only entrants who
finished  were  the Duryea and one of the Benz cars.  Although large crowds
turned out to watch the start of the race, it required eleven hours for the
winning Duryea to complete the distance - by which time nearly everyone had
gone home.

The  second  auto  race  in  the States took place six months later, in May
1896,  and  was  also  sponsored by a publication - this time, the New York
magazine   Cosmopolitan.   The  course  traveled  from  New  York  City  to
Irvington, and of the six starters, only the Duryea finished.  The American
public  was  less  than  impressed with the automobile - the bicyclists who
left at the same time as the cars arrived ahead of them.

Detroits First Automobile

Although  the  general  public  was  not  exactly  enthusiastic  about  the
"horseless  carriage"  in 1896 the men who were building them kept right on
doing  so.  In the same year as the disastrous New York - Irvinton race, an
inventor  named  Charles Brady King drove his gasoline-powered buggy on the
streets  of the midwestern city of Detroit, Michigan.  Following behind him
on  a  bicycle  was  a  young  electrical engineer formerly employed by the
Edison  company.   His name was Henry Ford, and twenty years later his name
would be synonymous with the popular car.

Ford  was already hard at work building an automobile of his own, and three
months  later  he  felt ready for a test drive.  He then discovered that he
had made a small oversight when he assembled the machine - it was too large
to  fit  through  the  door of his basement workshop.  With the hard headed
practicality  and  directness  that  were  to  become  his trademarks, Ford
grabbed  a  pickaxe  and  attacked  the door frame.  After removing a dozen
bricks  or  so  (and  reassuring  his  anxious  landlord),  Ford pushed his
Quadricycle  out  onto  the street and took it for a successful spin around
the  block.   The Quadricycle had a top speed of 20 mph, four times that of
Kings  car.   Ford  sold the vehicle for $200 and used the money to finance
the  building  of  his second car.  Many years later, nostalgic, he tracked
down the old Quadricycle and bought it back.

The Steamer Forges Ahead

Although  Ford,  King  and  Winton  all  built  successful gasoline powered
automobiles  in the late 1890s, it seemed for a time that the steamer would
be  the car of choice for the new century.  Apart from Alexander Winton, no
one was producing gasoline cars for sale between 1898 and 1900.  The Duryea
automobile  company, never prolific, folded in 1899, clearing the field for
a different pair of brothers:  identical twins Freelan and Francis Stanley.

The  Stanley  twins were both brilliant inventors, and already wealthy from
the  sale of their dryplate photographic process to the Kodak film company.
In 1888 they witnessed a steam powered car in action, and were so impressed
they tried to build one themselves.  Their first attempt was a failure, and
they  abandoned  the project for eight years until they saw another steamer
in 1896.  This time they succeeded in reproducing the invention, completing
their  first  car  in 1897.  It gave a winning performance in a Boston hill
climbing contest, and prospective buyers swamped the brothers with over 200
orders  for  the  vehicle - a volume they could not possibly fill.  As with
Morrisons  electric  car  seven  years  earlier,  the enthusiastic response
indicated  that  a  market  for  a  reliable  automobile did exist, if only
someone could produce the right car to tap it.

The  Stanley  brothers  gamely  set about trying to acquire enough parts to
build  the  first  hundred of their cars.  Before they had gotten seriously
underway, a man named John Walker approached them with a proposal.  Walker,
the  publisher  of  Cosmopolitan  and  the  sponsor of the unsuccessful New
York-Irvington  race,  offered  to  buy  out  the  Stanleys, business.  The
brothers  were  not  eager  to  sell  and  so,  to  discourage Walker, they
requested  the ridiculous price of $250,000.  To their astonishment, Walker
accepted, and the delighted twins closed the deal.
 
Walker  and  his  partner,  asphalt  millionaire  Amzi  Barber,  formed the
Locomobile Company of America in 1899, and began producing Stanley-designed
steamers  under  the  brand  name  Locomobile.   Later  that  year, William
McKinley  became  the  first  president  to ride in an automobile, and that
automobile  was  a  Locomobile  Steamer.   By  1901, half of the 8,000 cars
registered in the U.S.  were Locomobiles.

Five  years  after  selling  out to Walker, the Stanley brothers decided to
return  to  the  steamer business themselves and bought back their original
factory  from Locomobile to produce their new car.  Since Locomobile was in
the  process  of  switching over to gasoline engines, they were able to buy
back  for  just $20,000 everything they had sold five years before for over
ten times that amount.  After redesigning their original car just enough to
avoid  charges of patent infringement, they introduced the Stanley Steamer,
perhaps the best car of its time for the price.

Francis  Stanley  was once driving an experimental model on a straight road
near Boston when a policeman stopped him for speeding.  When he came before
the  judge,  Stanley  pleaded "not guilty" to the charge of going nearly 60
mph.   The  judge,  incredulous, asked how he could say that in the face of
the evidence, to which Stanley replied, "I plead not guilty to going 60mph.
When  I  passed  the  officer my speedometer showed was going 87 mph".  The
court  fined him $5 and the story made all the papers, generating excellent
publicity.   The  Stanley Streamer racer that won the Dewar Cup in 1906 was
clocked at an astonishing 127 mph

Unfortunately  for  the  Stanleys  and their excellent car, the time of the
steamer  was nearly over.  Although the Stanley Steamer and another popular
brand,  the  White Steamer, still had a number of good years ahead of them,
they  were  on  their  way out.  The White Steamers moment of glory came in
1906  when  Teddy  Roosevelt became the first American president to drive a
car,  and  chose a White, and they were also the first official White House
cars,  purchased  during  William Howard Tafts term in office.  But, unlike
its  presidents  at the time, the American public was quickly learning that
it preferred gasoline

Steam, Electric, or Gasoline?

The biggest question for carmakers before 1900 in America was:  which power
source  was best?  Although the gasoline engine would eventually defeat all
others,  at  the start it was not at all clear that such would be the case.
Both the steam powered and the electric-driven car did very well in America
at  the  beginning,  and car manufacturers produced excellent makes of both
types  of  automobile around the turn of the century.  Locomobile, maker of
steamers,  was  the  largest automobile producer in the country as of 1902,
but  just  a  year later the company dropped its steam engines in favour of
gasoline.

There  were  several  reasons  for the ascension of gasoline over steam and
electricity.   The  first was the discovery of America`s first oil "gusher"
in Spindletop, Texas in 1901, which guaranteed that gasoline would be cheap
and  plentiful  for many years to come.  The second was that both steam and
electricity had problems as power sources which gasoline did not.

The electric automobiles shortcomimgs were the same then as they are today:
limited  range  and  speed,  plus  the  great weight of the large batteries
needed  to provide sufficient power Electricity did well in the early years
of  motoring,  from  about  1906  to 1916, because its problems were not so
apparent  as  they  later  became.   Early cars were used only in the city,
where  the  limited  range  they  could  travel between recharges was not a
significant  problem,  since  the  distances to be crossed were small.  The
most  successful  producer  of electric cars, Colonel Albert Popes Colombia
Motor  Company,  delivered  a  vehicle  that  could  go fifty miles between
recharges  and  had  a  speed  of  35  mph.  The low top speed was no great
limitation when no production model auto powered by gasoline or steam could
do any better.

The  electric motor was silent, vilbrationless, safe, odorless, and started
instantly:    no   other  automobile  power  source  could  say  the  same.
Electricity  also  had the advantage of being very popular with the public,
as  the  electric light was an invention of recent times, and new uses were
being  found  for  electric  power  every  year.   But even Thomas A Edison
himself  said,  "The  future  of  the  automobile  will be the the gasoline
engine.  The inventor of the electric light was well aware of electricities
limitations.  The electric car prospered until the later years of the first
decade  of  the  twentieth century and then, in response to improvements in
roads  that  made  longer distance driving feasible, and the advance of the
gasoline car, it quietly faded away.

The  steamers  limitations  were less obvious, and might have been overcome
eventually  had  not the gasoline engine gotten there first.  Steam engines
used  kerosene  to  heat  water  for  steam pressure, and kerosene was more
expensive  than  gasoline at the time.  Early steamers required a long wait
before  the  engines  built up enough steam pressure to move the car - on a
cold  day  it  could  take up to forty five minutes to get one going.  This
problem  was  later solved by the invention of the flash boiler, but by the
time  it  became  standard  the  gasoline  powered  car  had  developed  an
insurmountable  lead.   The steam engine was also inherently less efficient
than  the  gasoline  engine  - although since it was an external combustion
device,  it  burned  more cleanly than its counterpart and produced less in
the way of harmful exhaust gases.  Consumers did not recognize this benefit
as  the  asset  it  was,  unfortunately, for air quality would not become a
concern for several decades yet.

The  steamer  lasted  about  as  long  as the electric car, although a high
quality streamer, the Doble, was being produced as late as 1924.  About 100
different  makes of steamer existed during its heyday, and 80% of them were
built  in the New England states.  Even by 1910, however, it was clear that
the future belonged to the gasoline engine

The First Popular Car

In  1897, Ransom E Olds set up a car company called the Olds Motor Works in
Lansing,  Michigan.   His  new  cars would be gasoline powered, Olds having
given up on steam engines.  In 1899 he moved the company to nearby Detroit,
since he considered Lansing too small to support his business while Detroit
was already a large city and growing fast.  Although he later moved back to
Lansing,  Olds  remains  the  first automaker to set up shop in what was to
become  the automobile capital of the world.  A disastrous fire at the Olds
auto  plant in 1901 nearly wiped out the fledgling automaker, but the event
was  something of a blessing in disguise.  Of the several prototypes in the
factory, only one was saved, forcing Olds to concentrate his production and
advertising efforts on that one car.  The automobile, the Curved Dash Olds,
made  its  debut  later  that year and was a smashing success.  It sold for
$600,  advertised as "a dollar a pound" as compared to the Locomobile which
cost  around  $1000.  The Curved Dash Olds was the first quantity built car
in  America  with over 16,000 being made between 1901 and 1907.  In 1905 it
became  the  subject  of  a  popular song still sung by barbershop quartets
today,  "In  My  Merrie  Oldsmobile".   The car and the company both became
known  by  the name "Oldsmobile" although it was never the official name of
the car and did not become the name of the company until much later.

Oldsmobile  overtook  Locomobile  as  America`s leading car manufacturer in
1903.   Three  years  after  that,  though,  the  company`s  sales  dropped
dramatically  when  it  stopped  making  the Curved Dash Olds and turned to
making  more  expensive  cars.   Ransom  Olds  objected  to  the  change in
direction, realizing, as Henry Ford did, that the biggest market lay in the
car  for the average man.  But by that time he had left the company and had
no  say over it.  He would later start up another car company, Reo, back in
his hometown of Lansing.

The Century Turns in America

By  1900  the automobile was well established in Europe, at least among the
upper  classes.   It  still had a way to go in the United States, though he
first  automobile  show  in America was held in New York city in this year,
and  the  press  called  it  a triumph "almost equal" to that of the yearly
horse show.

Electrics  and Locomobiles were making the rounds of most major cities on a
regular  basis.  Yet, on the farms that made up most of the country, almost
no  one had even seen an automobile.  When they did see one, they generally
hated it on sight or if not on sight, shortly thereafter, the first time it
spooked  their  horses  or killed one of their farm animals.  Farmers often
went  out  of  their  way  to sabotage early motorists, spreading tacks and
broken  glass  on  the  roads (sure to cause at least one puncture of those
fragile  early pneumatic tires)" or running rope or even barbed wire across
them.   Automobiles  and  their drivers were sometimes stoned, by adults as
well as mischievous children, or even attacked with horsewhips.

To  be  fair,  much of the farmers, anger at the automobile was legitimate,
and  fueled by the cavalier attitude taken by the early motorist toward the
farmer  and his property.  Drivers killed farm dogs and chickens with their
cars  and  kept right on driving, and they sometimes deliberately attempted
to  spook horses pulling carriages and carts (an easy thing to do, and most
amusing  - except for the people in the buggy or wagon).  The vast majority
of  early  drivers were rich city people and their disdain for their rustic
countrymen did not lead them to polite behaviour while in their cars or out
of them.

In  a  distinctly  unusual attempt to pacify horses and horse owners alike,
one  imaginative  entrepreneur,  Uriah  Smith  of  Battle  Creek, Michigan,
proposed to build a type of car called the "Horsy Horseless Carriage." This
vehicle sported a life-sized horse`s head and neck on the front of the car,
designed  to fool credulous equines into thinking that the automobile was a
standard  buggy.   As an additional plus, the head could be made hollow and
put  into  service  as  a fuel tank.  Unfortunately the head did nothing to
disguise  the  smell  or the sound of the automobile, and its doubtful that
Smith succeeded in tricking even a single horse with his invention.  He and
his car rapidly vanished from the motoring scene.

In  the  city,  on the other hand, the car was accepted quickly because the
horse had made itself less than welcome through the accumulation of massive
piles  of  dung  that had to be carted away (and often weren`t), leading to
serious  sanitation  and disease problems.  One often overlooked benefit of
the  automobile  to  cities  was  the  elimination  of this threat, and the
concurrent  sharp  reduction  in the occurrence of diseases such as tetanus
(lockjaw),  which  thrived in the horses by-products.  An additional health
hazard  resulted  when  the  horses,  often starved, ill treated, or simply
worked  to  death, dropped dead in the streets.  Owners often abandoned the
carcasses,  leaving  them to rot in public for days at a time.  This caused
serious  disease  potential  as  well  as an unbelievable stench.  Even the
sharp odor of car fumes could not begin to compare.

AMERICAN MOTORING GAINS SPEED

Early  commercial  production  in  the  United  States  did  not really get
underway until around 1900, but after that point it increased dramatically.
At  first,  American cars compared poorly to European vehicles for quality,
but  as more companies entered the field and the competition for sales grew
more  fierce,  U.S.   carmakers  rapidly  upgraded  their  wares until they
approached  a European level of reliability.  The first commercial American
cars  were  "assembled",  built  from  parts  produced  by  many  different
companies,  while  in  Europe most carmakers produced the majority of their
own  parts  in  their own companies, resulting in better workmanship in the
completed  car.  Once American carmakers started to amass the knowledge and
capital  to  be  able  to  the  same, the European lead in quality narrowed
swiftly.

Propelled  by  the  sales  of  such popular vehicles as the Locomobile, the
Columbia  electric  car,  the  Curved  Dash  Olds and the Stanley and White
Steamer,   and  aided  by  literally  hundreds  of  small  carmakers,  U.S.
automobile  production  hit  33,200  passenger  vehicles in 1906, enough to
unseat  France from its position as leading car manufacturer.  The American
lead  was no flash in the pan, either, but grew larger with every year that
passed.   It  would  take  over  seventy  years and a drastic change in the
motoring  scene for any other country's carmakers to equal the American car
industries power.
 
Evidence that the International motoring community was taking American cars
seriously  arrived  in  1908  with  the  New York to Paris automobile race.
Jointly sponsored by the New York City Times and Paris Le Matin newspapers,
the  course  covered  a  total  of 13,341 miles.  Six cars left New York on
February  12  and crossed the continent to San Francisco.  From there, they
were  shipped  to  Alaska  and  thence  to  Japan  and  the Russian port of
Vladivostok.   The  last  leg  of  the race was on land from Vladivostok to
Paris.   The winner was George Schuster driving a Thomas Flyer, who covered
the  distance  in  169  days.  All the contestants agreed that the roads of
Eastern  Europe,  and  even  Siberia,  were less of a problem than those of
upstate New York.

In  the  year  1903,  a  man named Horatio Nelson Jackson first crossed the
American  continent in a car.  In the same year, an automobile succeeded io
crossing  the  social rift between the city and farming country.  The "high
wheeler" car, basically a motor-powered horse buggy" had wheels tall enough
to  cope  with badly rutted country roads and deep mud pits.  Several makes
of  highwheeler  achieved limited success, and gave farmers the first taste
of what an automobile could do for them.

Sears  Roebuck  offered  one  make of high wheeler through its catalog from
1908  to  1912,  and a pleased farmer wrote in, "Iy beats a horse bad as it
don`t eat when I ain`t working it, and it stands without hitching, and best
of all it don`t get scared at automobiles".  The tall cars lasted about six
years,  but fell victim to rising expectations.  Their top speed was around
25  mph,  they  offered little preotection from the weather, and they faced
stiff  competition  from a new arrival on the car market that was the first
true automobile to deal fairly well with country roads:  the Model T Ford.

Why Detroit?

Why,  precisely,  did the city of Detroit become the one and only true home
of  the American automobile?  Part of the reason had to do with simple luck
in  having  several  of  the  most  prominent figures in the history of the
automobile  industry  living nearby, but there were more logical reasons as
well.

Although  one  of  the  earliest working automobiles, that of Charles Brady
King,  ran  on the streets of Detroit, it must be remembered that prototype
cars  were  chugging  along  on  the  streets  of many a Midwestern and New
England  city  at  that  time.  Detroit was nothing special in that regard.
More influential was the establishment of the Olds Motor Works in 1899 for,
as  the  city  where  the first truly popular car was manufactured, Detroit
naturally became associated with automobiles in the public mind.

Still,  as  of  1899  several  other  carmakers  had  begun  successful car
companies  in  other  locations Why didn`t their cities become "Motortown"?
The  reason  was  that  they  were making the wrong types of cars.  The New
England carmakers were producing steamers and electrics for the big Eastern
cities, and did well with them for a while.  But when the popularity of the
steamer  and  the electric declined, so did the image of New England as the
carmaker`s home.

The  Midwest  was,  by  comparison,  a  rough  and  ready  place, requiring
something  less dainty than an electric and hardier than a finicky steamer.
Settlements  were  further  apart than in the developed East, calling for a
vehicle  that  could  promise  an  extended  range.  The Midwest needed the
gasoline  automobile,  and  Detroit  was  one  of only two places that were
making  them  in  quantity.  Detroit`s only challenger was Cleveland, Ohio,
home of the Winton.

Both  Cleveland  and  Detroit had several advantages in common.  Both were,
vigorous cities located on what was still essentially a frontier, altlhough
settlers were rapidly taming it.  Their location midway between the settled
East  and  the  boisterous  West  made  them  a  natural  way  station  for
adventurous  people,  some of who decided to make their homes in the Mdwest
rather than continue on.  Both cities had abundant access to water and rail
transportation, and a large amount of skilled labor for the workshops, much
of  which  came from the influx of Irish German, and Dutch inmmigrants that
streamed  into the United States between 1880 and 1920.  Both Cleveland and
Detroit  had  fostered  one  very  successful  gasoline-powered  automobile
company.  Thus proving their suitability as a home for the industry.

However,  there were three things - or, rather, three people - that Detroit
had  which  Cleveland  lacked.  These three men, and the two companies they
founded, cemented Detroits position as the Car City.  First was Henry Ford,
with  his  Ford  Motor  Company;  second  there was David Dunbar Buick, who
formed  the  Buick  Motor Company; and third, there was William C.  Durant,
who built upon the keystone of Buick to create General Motors

Third Times the Charm for Ford...

Henry  Ford  was  born  July  30,  1863,  on his family`s farm in Dearborn,
Michigan.   Young  Henry  was not cut out for farm work, as he disliked the
rural  life  and  had  a natural mechanical aptitude At age 15 he ran of to
Detroit  to  train  as  a  machinist, and later advanced to the position of
chief engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company.  By the time he followed
Charles  King`s automobile through the streets of the city on a bicycle, he
had  for the past six years been tinkering with the idea of building one of
his  own.   Three  months after Kings jaunt, he succeeded.  His Quadricycle
was the sixth American built gasoline car to run.

Ford tries to found a company to build his cars for the first time in 1899,
but  the Detroit Automobile Company folded just over a year later.  In what
was  a familiar pattern, Ford and his business partners could not manage to
agree  on  what  the  aim  of the company should be.  The backers wanted to
build  cars  to sell, while Ford was not yet satisfied with his designs and
wished  to  keep  tinkering.   Ford,  always  stiff-necked  and headstrong,
refused to compromise and his backers pulled out.

Undaunted, Ford tried again later that year, forming the Henry Ford Company
with  William  Murphy  as  a  partner.  Once again, the company went under,
brought  low  by  personality differences between Ford and the man with the
money.   Ford  wanted  to  build race cars, feeling that his designs werent
ready for wholesale production yet.  Murphy disagreed, and brought in Harry
Leland  as  a production consultant.  Ford, furious, walked out, taking his
name  with  him.  Leland and Murphy put to use the parts and equipment Ford
had  bought  to  build  an  improved  Oldsmobile engine of Leland`s design.
Since Detroit was celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of its founding
by  Frenchman  Antoine  de  la Mothe Cadillac, Leland named his new car the
Cadillac.

Exasperated by having to deal with men who thought they had a right to tell
him  what  he  should  do  with their money, Henry Ford gave up on business
briefly.   He  turned  instead  to  racing  as  a means to obtain money and
publicity,  and  to  improve  his  engine designs.  He did quite well at it
setting  a  number of records.  The famous racer Barney Oldfield joined the
Ford  team  in  1902,  and  in  the following year became the first nman to
travel  a  mile  a minute, driving Ford`s most famous racer, the "999".  In
1904,  shortly  before  Ford gave up on racing entirely, he took the flying
mile record in the same car, traveling 91.37 mph.

Buoyed  by  his racing successes and his new popularity with the public, in
1903  Ford took another stab at starting a business.  His partner this time
was  Alexander Malcomson, a coal dealer.  The name was originally to be the
Ford  & Malcomson Company, but shortly after its founding it was changed to
the  Ford Motor Company.  The reason for the change is not recorded, but it
was  most  likely  done  to  pacify  the temperamental Henry Ford.  The new
company  began  with  $100,000  capital  funds,  $28,000  of  that in cash.
Malcomson,   a   canny  businessman,  assigned  his  talented  and  trusted
bookkeeper, James Couzens, to the Ford Company to keep an eye on Malcomsons
money.   Couzens,  ability  to do so, and to get along with Henry Ford, was
largely  responsible for the survival and eventual success of the fledgling
automobile   maker.    In   later  years,  James  Couzens  would  turn  his
administrative talents to use for the public good, serving with distinction
in the U.S.  Senate.

The  Ford Motor Company baptized its first car the "Model A" a name that it
would  later  reuse  for  an  entirely  different  car.   A true "horseless
carriage"  the  Model  A  strongly  resembled a horse buggy with a steering
wheel  and  no  horse.   The  first one was sold a month after the companys
founding,  to  a  dentist  in Chicago.  By 1904, the Ford Motor Company had
produced  1,708  automobiles, a remarkable number for a new carmaker in its
first  year.   Two  additional  models,  the Model B and the very expensive
Model C priced at $2000, had joined the Model A.

Alexander  Malcomson  wanted  the  company  to  build  more expensive cars,
believing in the prevailing wisdom that the market for automobiles lay with
the rich, whose tastes should be catered to if one wanted to make a profit.
Ford disagreed, believing instead that a larger market lay with the average
man,  if  only a car could be made cheaply enough for him to afford it.  In
this case Ford`s instincts were correct, and fortunately for the Ford Motor
Company,  his  wishes prevailed.  Henry stated his idea of production thus:
"The  way  to  make  automobiles  is  to  make  one automobile like another
automobile  -  to  make them all alike "He would later turn this philosophy
into a novel and wildly successful manufacturing method called the assembly
line.

...And also for Buick

In  the  year  that  Henry  Ford  was  taking his second shot at becoming a
carmaker,  a Scottish born engineer named David Dunbar Buick was taking his
first.   Buick  had  already  made  a  major contribution to modern life by
inventing  a  process  to  apply enamel to cast iron bathroom fixtures thus
making  them  easy  to  clean and sanitize and making the indoor bathroom a
possibility.   Like many brilliant inventors, however, he bored easily, and
by  the turn of the century he had abandoned plumbing and instead seized on
the  motorcar as an interesting device with which to experiment.  His first
automobile business endeavor went by the rather ponderous name of the Buick
Auto Vim and Power Company of Detroit.

Buick,  although  a  much more pleasant personality than Henry Ford, was if
anything a poorer businessman, and his first effort rapidly went broke.  He
tried again a year later, founding the Buick Manufacturing Company with the
engineer Walter Marr, and this time he actually managed to get some cars on
the  road  before the company foundered.  In 1903 one month before the Ford
Motor  Company  came  into  being,  Buick`s business was reorganized as the
Buick Motor Company.  It, too, seemed destined to fail within a few years -
until fate, in the person of William C.  Durant, stepped in.

Billy  Durant  was  one  of  the  partners  of the successful Dort & Durant
Carriage Company in Flint, Michigan when in 1904, he saw a Buick automobile
passing  by on the street and became intrigued by it.  Expansive, charming,
and  personable.  Durant was a salesman and businessman, not an engineer or
inventor.  Unlike Buick and Ford, he enjoyed playing the money game perhaps
a  bit  too  much.   Durant  bought a controlling interest in the faltering
Buick Motor Company, and set about making the business profitable.

Durant  reorganized  Buick  Motors  in the same way he had run his carriage
business.   His  first move was to go out and buy up all the companies that
provided  components  for  the  Buick cars to ensure a cheap and continuous
supply  of parts for the automobiles.  During a brief but intense financial
panic  in  1907  (deliberately  caused  by  financier, Pierpont Morgan as a
cynical  demonstration  of  his  power).   Durant  kept the Buick factories
running at full speed while all other manufacturers slowed down in response
to  the crisis.  When the panic ended suddenly, Buick was the only carmaker
with  cars  on  hand  to  sell:  and its future was assured.  It was during
these  years  that  Durant  first  began  to  envision  building a "holding
company"  a  corporation  uniting all automakers and their suppliers in one
organization.  In the next year, his dream would start to take shape.

THE START OF SOMETHING BIG

If any single year can be said to have determined the shape of the American
Automobile  industry,  it  would be 1908.  This year saw the premier of the
Model  T Ford, the car that would put a nation on wheels, and the formation
of  the  company that would one day be the world`s largest, General Motors.
It  was  in  this  year  that William Durant hired a French race car driver
named  Louis Chevrolet to race Buicks for him.  And, as fate would have it,
it  was  also  the  year  that a man named Walter Chrysler bought his first
automobile  (a  Locomobile  steamer) and took it apart in his garage to see
what made it work

The Model T

The  Ford  Motor  Company produced two new car designs in 1905, the Model K
and  the  Model  N.  The Modrel K was an experimental six cylinder car that
did not stay in production long.  Priced at $2,800, it was anything but the
"average man`s car".  that Ford envisioned - in fact, it was more expensive
than  the  highest  priced Cadillac of the same period.  Ford was also less
than happy with the six cylinder engine, which had problems with persistent
vibrations  that  he  could  never  eliminate,  and in his disgust with the
engine  refused  to allow his company to manufacture any more six cylinders
for  over thirty years.  The Model K was marketed as a cutting edge vehicle
and advertisements warned buyers, "Don`t Be a Year Behind-er." This was one
of  the  first  times  the  idea  of  a "yearly model" appeared in America.
Ironically  enough,  in  later  years  Henry  Ford was to scorn the idea of
turning out a new model every year to catch the fancy of the fickle public.

The  Model  N car was more successful.  A four cylinder vehicle selling for
less  than $500, it was a direct precursor to the Model T, and it sold well
enough  to move Ford from fourth place to first by 1906.  At about the same
time,  Ford  decided  that  buying  all  Ford  automobile  parts from other
companies  was  an  unreasonable expense, and formed the Ford Manufacturing
Company  in  order to be able to build his own components.  He deliberately
set  up  the  company without including Alex Malcomson, as he felt (perhaps
rightly)  that  Malcomson`s  ideas would eventually lead to the ruin of the
company if unchecked.

Malcomson, furious at Ford`s underhanded maneuvering, left to start his own
business  making automobiles, the Aerocar Company.  He kept his Ford stock,
however.   Henry  Ford felt that it was unjust for Malcomson to use profits
made from Ford`s cars to manufacture a competing make and took Malcomson to
court  over it.  The judge agreed with Ford, and forced Malcomson to divest
himself  of his Ford stock.  Despite the breach between Ford and Malcomson,
James  Couzens  and  another Malcomson employee, a brilliant young engineer
named Childe Harold Wills, decided to stay with Henry Ford.

Ford  brought out the Model R and S cars in 1907, which kept his company as
the  top  manufacturer.   His  nearest  competitor  was  Buick,  which  was
producing  about  two  thirds  the number of cars Ford was.  In the fall of
1908,  Ford  introduced the car that was to make his name a household word,
the  Model T.  It was popular right from the start, but it would not become
omnipresent  on  American roadways until five years after its introduction.
Few other cars generated the level of affection - and exasperation in their
owners as did the "Flivver" also known as the "Tin Lizzie"

The Model T was designed by Ford, Wills, and Joseph Galamb.  In 1906, Wills
had  discovered  a  process  for  machining  vanadium steel into automobile
components.   Vanadium  steel  components  required less metal, and so were
lighter  but  at  the  same  time  stronger  than  contemporary parts.  The
strength  of  vanadium steel was in a great part responsible for one of the
Model  Ts  greatest  selling points, its durability.  Its sole other virtue
was  its economy of operation.  It did not possess the advantages of either
beauty  or  style,  but it was not hampered much by its lack of looks.  The
people  for  whom  it  was  intended  and  who  bought  it were looking for
dependable,  affordable  transportation,  not a status symbol, and that was
precisely what Ford gave them.

The  car was a simple design, borrowing elements from the Model R and S and
adding  a  few  innovations  of  its  own,  including  the  vanadium  steel
crankshaft  and an engine designed to be easily serviceable.  It had a four
cylinder, 20 horsepower gasoline engine and a simple planetary transmission
operated  by  pedals on the floor.  It also had a steering wheel set on the
left  to  make  driving on the right easier.  Although driving on the right
had  been the American standard for some time, carmakers had not yet gotten
around  to standardizing the position of the steering wheel and in numerous
models of the time it was still placed on the right.  The popularity of the
Model  T  with its left set wheel, helped determine what the standard would
become in the years that followed.

The Model T was offered in five body styles, at prices ranging from $825 to
$  1,000 at its introduction.  The price dropped rapidly as Ford found ways
to  economize on production.  The transmission and steering were very cheap
(which  is  why  the car could be made inexpensively) and somewhat outmoded
even   in   the  year  he  car  was  introduced.   Nevertheless,  the  same
transmission  and  steering  remained  on the car until it ended production
after  nearly  twenty  years.  All components were Ford made except for the
tires,  made  by Harvey Firestone, and the bodies, provided by a variety of
suppliers.

Production  began  fairly  slowly, but by the summer of 1909 the Ford Motor
Company  was building cars at the rate of one hundred a day.  Back in 1906,
Henry  Ford had predicted that he would one day reach that figure, and been
universally   mocked  for  his  statement.   He  must  have  felt  enormous
satisfaction  on  the  day he first proved the mockers wrong.  In its first
year on the market nearly six thousand Model Ts were sold.


                        END OF PART ONE
                        -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


                    DETROIT - THE OPEN ROAD - Part 2
                    =======================---------

The Founding of General Motors

Billy  Durant was a man with large dreams.  Once he had Buick Motors up and
running, he wasted little time in pursuing bigger fish.  His grand plan was
to  unite  as  many car companies and their suppliers as possible under one
name.   This  would  guarantee  financial security for all of them in a bad
year,  and  enable  the  resulting  conglomerate to be able to offer a wide
range  of automobiles priced to suit any pocketbook.  In 1908 he set out to
convince  America`s  other  carmakers  to  join  him  in his new venture, a
company called General Motors.  He first approached Ford with his idea, but
Ford,  realizing that the company would be Durant`s and not his, was not at
all willing to relinquish control of Ford and refused.

Most other carmakers Durant approached at first felt similarly, distrusting
the  smoothtalking  Durant,  and  therefore declined his inivitation.  As a
result,  GM  was  formed  in  deep secrecy on September 16, 1908, with only
$2,000  in capital funds.  With that small base to work from, Durant bought
his  considerable  talents  as  a salesman to bear and within two weeks had
parlayed  his  tiny starting sum into $12.5 million.  His first move was to
"buy"  Buick  Motors.   A  month  later, he added Oldsmobile to his group -
Olds,  company  had  been  faultering since the departure of its founder in
1904   and   the   ensuing  mishandling  of  the  company  by  its  primary
stockholders,  the  Smith  family.   In  the  following  year, Durant added
Oakland  (which  would  become Pontiac) and Harry Leland`s Cadillac cars to
his  line.  By the end of 1910, he had bought seventeen car companies and a
large  number  of  component  makers as well, and set the foundations for a
commercial empire.

One  sad  casualty  of Durant`s empire building was David Buick.  Buick was
never  very  interested  in  the  business  end  of his company, preferring
tinkering  with  his  engines to engaging in the wheeling-dealing financial
enterprises  of which Durant was so fond.  After Buick and Durant quarreled
over  the  question of whether Buick was going to sell his engines to other
firms  -  Buick  said  yes,  Durant  said no.  David Buick bowed out of the
company he had founded leaving it in Durant`s hands.  Durant saw to it that
Buick  left  with a handsome parting gift of $100,000 of Durant`s own money
and  a  large  chunk  of  Buick  stock, but unfortunatly it did David Buick
little good.  He invested unwisely in a number of shaky businesses and lost
everything,  ending  his  life in poverty and obscurity as cars bearing his
name rolled by in the streets outside.

Durant  meanwhile  proved to be over eager in the pursuit of his dream.  He
spent  a great deal of money in a very short time (his purchase of Cadillac
for  $5.75 million was the largest single financial transaction ever at the
time  it  was  made),  and much of it went for companys of dubious quality.
Durant  bought many businesses on the off chance that the patents they held
might  come  in  useful  someday,  and most of them didn`t.  Only two years
after  its  founding  it appeared that General Motors was about to go under
before it had really gotten off the ground.

Durant  and the other heads of GM appealed to a banker`s consortium to bail
out  the  company.   The  bankers  agreed to do so, but as a condition they
required  that  Billy  Durant  step  down  as  president  of Buick and vice
president  of  GM.   Durant bowed to the inevitable and resigned his posts,
although he kept his seat on the Board of Directors of General Motors.  His
place  at  Buick was taken by Charles Nash, who would go on in future years
to  found  a  car company of his own.  But General Motors had not heard the
last from Billy Durant.

The Selden Patent

Back  in  1895,  a  lawyer  named George Selden had obtained a patent for a
primitive  automobile.   Four  years later he sold the patent to a group of
electric  carmakers,  the  Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers
(ALAM),  headed  by  Colonel  Pope  of  Colombia  Electric.   The  electric
automobile  manufacturers  had  little  use for the patent, which was for a
gasoline   engine,  but  they  may  have  been  hoping  to  discourage  the
development  of  gasoline  cars until they could work out the problems with
the  electric, or perhaps they were just hedging their bets, as no one then
could tell which type of car would eventually dominate the market.

Most gasoline engine automobile makers of the period paid royalties to ALAM
thanks  to  the  Selden  patent,  or  got around it by joining ALAM itself.
Winton,  Knox,  Locomobile,  Oldsmobile, Packard, amnd the Pierce Arrow had
all  become  members rather than pay royalties.  As of 1903, Selden had not
built  a single car in that year, to defend his patent from a challenge, he
built  two  of  them,  but  neither of them ran more than a few yards.  The
judge  did not consider the failure of the vehicles to be an issue, though,
and  upheld  the  patent.   The  verdict  caused  a stampede as thirty more
automakers rushed to join up with ALAM.

In the same year, Henry Ford made inquiries about obtaining membership, but
was  brushed  off  by  F.L.Smith  of  Oldsmobile  because  he  was "only an
assembler." Ford, his combative nature aroused by the insult wore that ALAM
could  take  its  patent and go to Hell, for they would never get a cent of
royalties out of him.

During  the  first  year  of  full  scale Model T production, in 1909, ALAM
brought  suit  against  Henry Ford to force him to pay up.  Ford challenged
the patent on the grounds that Selden`s car ran on a two cycle engine while
his  ran  on  a  four.   He  also  founded  his  own  group,  the Motor Car
Manufacturers  Association,  as support for the fight.  Ford`s organization
included  himself  Marmon,  Reo,  Maxwell-Briscoe,  Mitchell, and the truck
manufacturer  Mack.   After two years of court battles Ford won the case on
appeal.

The  effect  of  his  struggle  with  ALAM and his victory over them on the
public  was  enormous.  Ford came to be viewed as the representative of the
Common  Man  contending  with  the over whelming forces of Big Business and
succeeding  against  high  odds.  This view was not entirely justified; the
Ford  Motor  Company  was already well established as a Big Business in its
own  right,  and  in  fact  Ford  had  more  money  than  any  of  the  car
manufacturers  that comprised ALAM.  Nevertheless, the court case made Ford
a  folk  hero  of  sorts,  and  he came to be viewed as the champion of the
underdog  Midwest  against  the  establishments  of the East.  In any case,
there is no question that all the furor helped his car sales tremendously.

Durant Finds a New Partner

In 1911, Billy Durant found himself in the frustrating position of being on
the  Board  of  Directors of GM, but being essentially powerless.  This did
not  sit well with him at all, and he set out, in his own inimitable style,
to do something about it.

Durant  realized, as Olds and Ford had before him, that a tremendous market
existed  for  a  cheap  car  of  reasonable quality.  He also realized that
General  Motors  had  no  plans  to build any car fitting that description.
Never  one  to  miss  an opportunity (good or bad), Durant approached Louis
Chevrolet,  a  well  known  race driver who had worked for Durant at Buick.
Durant resoned that a race car driver must have some idea what makes a good
car,  and  when  he  proposed to Chevrolet that Chevrolet should design the
kind  of  car  Durant  had  in mind and Durant would provide the financing,
Chevrolet was agreeable.

At  the  end  of  the year, the company was formed.  Chevrolet designed the
car,  and Durant set up the company and did the marketing.  Nothing but the
design  and  the name were Chevrolets.  The company belonged to Durant, and
Chevrolet  was  not  even  on  the  board  of directors.  The earliest cars
Chevrolet designed were less than successful, but in 1914 he produced the H
series  490.   It  became  a  significant  success,  and  the new company`s
fortunes  began  to  rise.   Durant, with a sucessful company to work with,
began  to scheme to achieve greater things once again, but the Directors of
General Motors failed to catch the scent of trouble on the wind.


THE CLASSIC YEARS

Woodrow Wilson while still president of Princeton, condemned the automobile
as  a  spreader  of social envey amoungst the lower classes, since it was a
luxury  only  the idle rich could afford.  Little did he know that within a
very  few  years, the automobile would become available to nearly everyone.
The man who made that possible was Henry Ford, and he did it by inventing a
manufacturing  process that would revolutionize the automobile industry and
many  other  industries  as  well.   Up until 1906, the U.S.  lagged behind
Europe  in  auto  development,  but  by  1915 that situation had completely
turned around, thanks almost solely to Ford.

AN AUTOMOBILE FOR THE AVERAGE MAN: 1913-1919

Henry  Ford  had a dream:  he wanted to build an automobile that the common
man  could  afford.   With  current  production  methods,  however,  it was
impossible  to  produce  a  car  cheaply enough so that it could be sold to
someone  of modest means and still make a profit for the manufacturer.  The
cost  for  parts,  and more importantly for labor, were just too high.  The
only  way  to  get  around  these  problems  was  to create a new method of
manufacturing.

Flivvers for Everyone

The  concepts  that  led  to  the inspiration of the assembly line had been
around  for  a  while  before  Henry Ford put them to work.  In Delaware in
1784,  Oliver  Evans  set  up  a  system  of conveyor belts and chutes that
allowed  him  to  grind  flour  in  a continuous process, and keep his mill
running  day and night.  The basic technique was adopted by the rest of the
milling  community,  and  came  to  be  used in the textile, iron, canning,
hardware,  and  meat-packing  industries.   It  may have been the last that
inspired  Ford;  one  story  holds  that  inspiration  struck  when  he saw
carcasses  being  moved  through  a  meat packing plant on a chain conveyor
belt, each worker taking off the appropriate cut as it passed his station.

Automobiles  were  not carcasses, though - they had to be put together, not
taken  apart.  In order to make Fords idea really work, another element was
required;  interchangeable,  standardized  parts.   The  first standardized
parts  were  made  in  1800 by Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, who
devised  a  system  for precision machining of parts in order to make large
numbers  of  rifles for the U.S.  Militia.  It was Ford`s particular genius
to  see that the two ideas - a belt that carried parts past workers instead
of  the workers carting parts to a central location, and standardized parts
that  eliminated  the  need  for  individual hand fitting and adjustment of
assembled  components  -  could be combined to produce complex manufactured
goods in an efficient manner.

Ford  first  instituted  his new process in the manufacture of magnetos for
ignition systems.  The trial was a huge success.  What used to take one man
eighteen  minutes  to  accomplish  could  be  done in only five - less than
one-third  the  time.   Encouraged,  Ford  soon  expanded the system to the
manufacture  of  entire automobiles.  It worked as well there as it had for
the  magnetos,  reducing  the time needed to assemble a chassis from twelve
and  a  half  hours  to  only  one and a half.  One disadvantage to the new
technique  was  that  only  black  paint  would dry fast enough to make the
faster  assembly practical, so from 1914 on a customer could have his Model
T In any color, as long as it`s black.

The  main  effect of the assembly line, from Ford`s point of view, was that
he could now afford to make the "car for the average man" that he`d dreamed
of  since  his  company  was  founded.   He  put his new assemblers to work
producing  Model T Fords in numbers previously undreamed of.  In 1914, Ford
alone produced 202,667 cars, more than the rest of the worlds manufacturers
combined,  and by 1923 the manufacturing rate was such that 1,817,891 Fords
were  built  in  a  single  year, more than four times the number of Ford`s
closest rival at the time, Chevrolet.

The  price  of the Model T Ford plummeted in response to the new economical
manufaturing method.  By 1916 it was down to $360, and by 1924 one could be
had  for  $260.   With prices like that, the customers didn`t care that the
Flivver  was  fairly  ugly and not exactly the most modern car on the road.
They  bought in droves.  By 1920 two thirds of all vehicles on the American
road  and  one half of those in the world were Fords.  For the next fifteen
years,  Henry  Ford was the undisputed automobile king.  Ford, born of farm
stock,  was  particularly  pleased  when  Model  T  became  the  first true
automobile  to  be a hit with farmers, replacing the vanishing high wheeler
in  their  hearts.  Like the high-wheeler and unlike its contemporaries, it
was  not  bothered  by  the  rough  back-country roads.  IT was a plain and
simple car for a plain and simple people.

Henry Ford Objects to Dodge

For  many years Ford had been having its engines and a few other parts made
by  the  Dodge  brothers  in  their  family`s machine shop.  They had begun
building  engines  for Olds in 1901, but in 1903 Ford offered them $5,000 a
month  and 50 shares of Ford stock each to work for him instead.  The stock
alone  was more than enough to make them millionaires when the Model T took
off.

By  1910  the  Dodge  brothers,  who  had  some  good  ideas for automobile
innovations,  were  growing  frustrated  with  Henry  Ford`s  single minded
concentration  on  his  Model T and his refusal to make any improvements on
the  car.   Without  telling Ford, they began to design a car of their own,
planning  for it to be of better quality than the Model T but priced in the
same  moderate  range,  and  in  1914  they incorporated the Dodge Brothers
Company.   Their  premier  car,  the Dodge Four came out the following year
with  the  first  all steel body, as well as many other lesser innovations,
and a price tag of $785.

Though  derided  by  some  as  a  "tin can" the car, supported by the Dodge
Brothers,  sterling  reputation  as  engine makers, was an instant success.
Some  22,OOO  firms  applied  for Dodge dealerships before the car was even
officially  launched.   In its first year, the firm went from non existence
to third place behind Ford and Willys Overland.

Henry  Ford  found  the Dodge Brothers, instant success a difficult pill to
swallow.   He  felt  that the Dodge engine had risen to fame on the back of
the  Model  T,  not the other way around, and for the Dodge Brothers now go
into  business  using  that  reputation  to  make  a competing car was base
treachery.   To  add  insult  to  injury, they owned 10% of his company and
supported  their  business with profits from his cars!  The Auto King vowed
to  rectify  the  situation.   In  1916 he announced that instead of paying
dividends  to  his  stockholders,  he  planned  to plow the companys entire
profits  into  expansion  and  development  of  the  Ford  facilities.  The
stockholders naturally objected, and when Ford refused to yield, they filed
suit  to  force  him to pay.  Three years later a judge decided in favor of
the stockholders, much to Ford`s annoyance.

These  events  convinced  Henry Ford that letting other people have any say
whatsoever  in  the doings of his company was insupportable.  Therefore, he
set  about  immediately  buying  up  all the shares of Ford that he did not
personally  own.   The  stock,  which  had  sold at $100 a share when first
offered  cost  Ford  $12,500  a  share  to buy back.  The total cost of the
purchase was an astounding $100 million, but Henry could afford it.  It was
almost  forty  years  before  anyone other than a member of the Ford family
would  hold  even  a  single  share of Ford stock again.  Today, the family
still holds 40% of all shares

The Prodigal Returns

Billy  Durant  and  Louis Chevrolet were having trouble agreeing on company
policy  for  Chevrolet, or even what type of cars they were going to build.
Chevrolet  wanted  to  build  big, expensive cars but Durant controlled the
business  and  directed  him  toward  lighter, cheaper automobiles instead.
Their  differences  of opinion reached a critical level in 1913 when Durant
suggested  to  Chevrolet that he adopt a more polished image appropriate to
his  new  status  as  a  successful manufacturer - for example, Billy said,
Chevrolet  should  abandon  his beloved lower class cigarettes for the more
prestigious  cigar.   Chevrolet,  pushed  too  far, blew up and walked out,
leaving Durant sole control of Chevrolet.

Chevrolet continued to prosper under Durant`s adept management, garnering a
nice  slice  of the economy car market.  In 1915 Durant decided it was time
to  implement the strategy he`d been working on all along:  the takeover of
his beloved GM, stolen from him five years before.  Durant used his profits
from  Chevrolet and bank loans against the company to buy up some GM stock.
Then,  by  arranging a stock swap between Chevrolet and GM shares favorable
to  the  GM  stockholders, he expanded his total past the critical 50%.  At
the  next  meeting  of the Board of Directors of GM Durant sauntered in and
announced that he was back in charge.

His Time of triumph was destined to last only a few years, however.  It was
Billy  Durants personal tragedy that, for all his skill at running a single
company, he did not seem able to get the hang of how to successfully manage
a  large,  diversified  corporation.   Failing  to  learn  from his earlier
experiences,  Durant  returned  to  his  old policy of spend, spend, spend.
This  time  he  went  for a so called "vertical" expansion, buying up parts
suppliers  such as Fisher Body, Frigidaire, and Hyatt Roller Bearing.  With
Hyatt  Roller  Bearing came a talented young manager named Alfred P.  Sloan
who  would  one day become Durant`s successor.  But it would take some time
for  the effects of Durant`s spending binges to become apparent, so for the
moment, Billy Durant was riding high.

In  1917  with  World  War  I  raging  in  Europe and America`s involvement
becoming  more  and  more  likely  with  each  passing day, Harry Leland of
Cadillac,  a  staunch  patriot,  asked  Durant  if  he  could  use Cadillac
facilities  to  manufacture  Liberty airplane engines.  Durant, a pacifist,
refused.   To his surprise, Leland`s determination to add to the war effort
was so strong that the founder of Cadillac resigned in order to start a new
company  devoted  to  building  the  Liberty.  When the war ended two years
later,  Leland`s  new  company, Lincoln, went over to doing what Leland did
best,  and within a short time Lincoln cars were competing with Lelands old
company, Cadillac.

FROM DEPRESSION TO DEPRESSION : 1920-1929

It  was  during  the  Roaring Twenties that America`s "love affair with the
automobile"  became  passionate.  Between the years of 1920 and 1929 annual
car  production  in  the U.S.  jumped from two million to four million, and
total  car  registrations  went from eight million to twenty three million.
By  1930  there  was one car for every 13 households.  Twenty years before,
the  figure had been one per forty four.  Owning a car became a symbol that
the buyer could afford "the good life" and everyone wanted one.

All  other  purchases were set aside in favor of the automobile - sometimes
even  basic  necessities.   We`d rather do without clothes than give up the
car,  said  one  mother  of  nine  in  1923, while a 1925 survey in Muncie,
Indiana  showed that twenty-one out of twenty six car owning households had
no  bathtubs  with  running  water.  When asked why they chose a car over a
bathtub  one  farmers  wife  replied  simply,  "You can`t ride to town in a
bathtub"

Many  improvements  were  made in the automobile during this period.  Among
the features that became commonplace were balloon tires, enclosed hydraulic
brakes,   standardized  gearshift,  noclash  shifting,  windshield  wipers,
taillights,  hydraulic  shock  absorbers,  and  the  mechanical  fuel pump.
Automobile  designs  started  to  conform to a few standard looks, and much
variety  disappeared  as carmakers grew unwilling to seem "unconventional".
After  1929  obvious  ostentation  went  out of vougue with a desire not to
flaunt wealth, if you were fortunate enough to still have it.

One  clear trend that developed through the 1920s was the ascendance of the
businessman  over  the  inventor  in  the  American  auto  industry.  Early
automobile   producers   were  in  general  engineers  and  machinists  not
salespeople  or administrators.  They brought their ingenrity and technical
know  how  to  their  companies,  while other men brought the money and the
business  savvy  The few inventors who managed to start their own companies
without the help of a businessman such as the Stanleys and David Buick, did
so  by  selling off their previous assets for capital.  But eventually they
were  forced  to  turn to others to handle the problems of managing the new
industry.

By  the  mid  1920s nearly all of the original auto pioneers were no longer
associated  with  their  companies, the notable exception being iron willed
Henry  Ford.  Ransom Olds had been forced to leave his company in 1904 when
the  Smith family, his backers, refused to let him build the kind of car he
wanted,  David  Buick  had  abandoned  his  to  Billy  Durant, as did Louis
Chevrolet, and the Dodge Brothers had passed away.

The End of Billy Durant

The  American  economy  nose  dived  in  1920,  slumping  into  a temporary
depression.   It  was  a  foreshadowing  of  events to come, and it spelled
trouble  for Billy Durant`s overextended General Motor Corporation.  Durant
took  heavy  losses  in the stock market, in both his personal fortunes and
those  of  GM.   Many  of  Durant`s friends who had purchased stocks on his
advice  experienced  severe  financial  difficulty,  and  Durant`s sense of
personal honor led him to bail each and every one of them out at disastrous
cost  to  himself.  By the end of the year, his personal debts totaled over
$800,000, and the only asset he held was his GM stock.

The  bankers  backing  GM,  long  unhappy  with  Durants  free handed money
policies  stepped  in  again  as  they  had  in 1910, offering to write off
Durant`s  debt in exchange for shares in General Motors.  Durant had little
choice  but  to  accept, and he once again lost control of the company that
had  been  his brainchild.  This time his departure was to be permanent for
the  bankers,  having been fooled once, demanded that Durant relinquish his
seat on the Board of Directors as part of the settlement.

Durant  re entered the automotive field almost immediately, founding Durant
Motors  in  1921 with a new set of backers.  He had not lost his touch, and
Durant  Motors  did  quite  well for a number of years.  At long last, cars
bearing   Billy   Durant`s   name   were   rolling   through  the  streets.
Unfortunately, like so many other carmakers, Durant Motors did not have the
wherewithal to survive the Great Depression, and it folded in 1933.

Like  David  Buick, Durant ended his life in poverty and obscurity, working
in  a  small  restaurant.   An  unpleasant  auto dealer in the area enjoyed
bringing in customers so that he could impress them by ordering a hamburger
from the man who founded General Motors.  Durant died a broken man, but the
company  he  founded  thrived.   Even  today,  although its fortunes are no
longer at their height, it remains the largest single company in the entire
world.

From Dirt Roads to Concrete Highways

In addition to opening up the European automobile market, the ending of WWI
brought  another benefit to the American automobile industry in the form of
better  roads.   Until  the advent of the automobile, macadam roads made of
layers of pressed stones had been the standard.  But automobile traffic was
hard  on  macadam,  as the high speed of the automobile loosened the stones
and raised huge clouds of dust.  This problem was solved by the addition of
asphalt  to  the  base  matrix, resulting in a serviceable (if not terribly
durable)  road  surface.   In  1909,  the first concrete road was laid - in
Detroit,  naturally.   But  the road network was slow to spread, especially
outside of the cities.

The  coming  of the popular car led to a public outcry against the state of
the  nations  roads.   People  who  had  vehicles to travel with now wanted
something  decent  to  drive them on.  The governnment responded by passing
the  Federal  Road  Act  in  1916  to authorize and provide funding for the
establishment  of  a nationwide system of interstate highways.  The Federal
Highway Act of 1921 expanded on this earlier legislation, and the ingenious
Kahn-Wadsworth  Bill  killed  two  birds  with  one  law  by  offering  the
government`s large supply of surplus trucks (left over from the war effort)
at  rock  bottom prices to states and cities that provided for the building
of  new  roads and the improvement of the ones that already existed.  Under
this impetus, Americas road network rapidly expanded.

The  improved  roads had an immediate effect on the public.  In addition to
allowing  city  folk  to  travel to the Great Outdoors and making intercity
business  easier to conduct, it had more subtle effects on the car industry
itself.   For  one  thing,  the  open  road  made  a great testing area for
automobiles  and  the  word  quickly  spread of which vehicles were durable
enough  to  cope  with the increased wear and which ones weren`t.  Numerous
small  carmakers  went  out of business because their automobiles failed to
operate to an acceptable standard on longer drives.  Since gas stations had
not  been  invented  yet,  gasoline  was purchased at the general store and
carried in cans in the back of the car for long trips.

People  also started wanting faster and faster cars to enable them to cross
the  distance  between  their  starting  point and their destination in the
least amount of time, so lower performance cars tended to suffer.  One such
car was the venerable Model T; with a top speed of 40-45 mph, which dropped
to  35  mph  if  the  extra weight of a weather resistant top was added, it
steadily lost ground to the swifter more modern vehicles.

And  as  if  that  weren`t more than enough to cause difficulties for small
manufacturers,  another  side  effect  of the expanding road network was an
increased  access  to  formerly  isolated  areas  by the big car companies.
Several  makes  which were successful on a local basis folded when Ford and
GM came to town.  If you drove a well known type of car on a long trip, you
improved  your chances of finding a mechanic in a distant location who knew
how  to  repair  it, and a source for repair parts was likely to be closer.
The  carmakers  that  had  reached  a  certain  critical  size in the 1920s
flourished,  while those that were not large enough to support the required
expansion withered and eventually died.

The "Big Three" Are Complete

The year saw the arrival of the last of what were to become the ruling trio
of  the  American  auto  industry  -  Ford,  General  Motors, and Chrysler.
Compared  to  the  other  two  members  of  the  "Big Three" Chrysler was a
relative  latecomer.   Ford  began in 1903 and GM in 1908, but Chrysler was
not  officially  formed  until  1928.  It had its foundations much earlier,
however

The  Maxwell-Briscoe  company  was  a venerable organization which had been
around  since  the  early  days  of  the  automobile.   It  was  reasonably
successful  until one of its founders, Benjamin Briscoe, made a major error
in judgment.  Briscoe had been approached by Billy Durant in 1908 and asked
General  Motors.   Briscoe, deciding that he liked the idea but didn't like
Durant, declined, and in 1910 set up a rival group called the United States
Motor  Corporation.  It included Maxwell Briscoe, Brush, Columbia, Courier,
and  Stoddard  Dayton.   The  USMC  experienced financial difficulties very
similar  to  those  GM  had  in  its  early  years,  and  by 1912 it was in
bankruptcy.   Durant  managed  to  convince a finance group to save General
Motors,  although  it  cost  him  his  control of the company, but Briscoe,
lacking Durant`s connections (and perhaps Durants renowned charm) could not
pull off a similar trick, and United States Motors collapsed and vanished.

The failure of the corporation nearly dragged Maxwell Briscoe down with it,
until  the  company  was  bought by a man named Walter Flanders, who united
with Chalmers after WWI to form Maxwell-Chalmers.  The company never really
recovered  completely,  though,  and  in  1921  the  experienced automobile
executive  Walter  P  Chrysler,  the  former head of Buick who had recently
given  his walking papers to Billy Durant, was brought in to reorganize it.
Chrysler  had  some ideas, which he quickly put Maxwell`s engineers to work
on.   The  result  in  1923 was the Chrysler Six, a car with a six-cylinder
high  performance  engine that could give a top speed of 75 mph.  It was an
instant hit.

In  1926,  deciding  that  he  was tired of producing cars with other mens'
names  on  them,  Walter Chrysler renamed the entire company after himself.
Two  years  later  he  bought  Dodge, which had gone into decline after the
unfortunate  and  untimely  deaths  of both Dodge brothers in 1920 Chrysler
continued  to  make design improvements on his cars and also released a new
line in 1929, which he called Plymouth (after a popular brand of twine used
by  farmers,  whom  Chrysler  hoped  would  purchase  the  Plymouth  car by
association) Now, with three different makes of automobile, all successful,
Chrysler  was  well  on  its  way  to  becoming  a  major force in the auto
industry.

A Crackerbox Rainbow

Automobiles of early years were "Touring cars" open models that provided no
protection  from the wind or inclement weather.  It was not long before the
soft  top  cars arrived, copied from horse buggies, with snap on windows to
use in case of rain.  The extra protection of the hardtop was not available
at all until the late 1910s, and then only to the wealthy.  The 1920s saw a
major  style  change arrive in the form of the first affordable hardtop, or
"crackerbox" so-called because of its boxy shape.

The  first  enclosed  hardtop  car  priced for the average consumer was the
Essex,  produced  by  the  Hudson  Motor Company in 1919.  It sold for only
about  $100  more than the open touring car, and many buyers were more than
happy  to pay extra to be safe from the weather.  The Essex sparked a swift
rollover  in the type of car on the road.  As of 1920, only 10% of American
cars  were hardtops, while by 1925 the Essex had brought that percentage up
to  50%,  and  in  1929 the changeover was complete, with 90% of cars being
"crackerboxes".

The  other major technological innovation that would drastically change the
look  of  the American car arrived in the 1920s as well.  As Henry Ford had
found  out  when he began producing his Model Ts on the assenmbly line, the
slowest part of the process was the painting of the cars.  The paint had to
be  brushed  on hy hand, dried, sanded to remove brush marks, painted again
and  the  whole process repeated three or four times for primer, paint, and
varnish.  The cars also had to be stored inside while this went on, to keep
grit  and  dust  from sticking to the drying paint, and that wasted a great
deal  of  space.   Ford dealt with this by sticking with the one color that
dried  fast  enough  to  suit  him,  namely  black,  while other carmakers,
although  they  didn`t  go  as  far  as  Henry  did,  also found themselves
restricted  to  using  a  limited  range  of  colors if they wanted to stay
profitable.

This all changed in 1920, when a chemist working at DuPont invented a quick
drying   lacquer,  and  soon  realized  that  it  could  revolutionize  the
car-painting  process.   He  took his idea to Charles Kettering, founder of
the  Dayton  Electronics  Laboratory  (DELCO)  and  head of research at GM.
Kettering  an  inventive  genius  in  his  own right who designed the first
modern  automobile  ignition system, easily saw the value in the new paint,
and  agreed to have GM start using it if a paint producer could be found to
manufacture  it  in  quantity.   The  plan  hit  a  snag when the big paint
companies  balked,  protesting  that  the  new  lacquer would force them to
retrain all their workmen and junk their current varnishing equipment.

Kettering  decided that extreme measures were called for.  He invited a big
paint  company  executive  for  a  grand tour of GM, and when the man first
arrived,  spoke  to  him  about  the  range of colors possible with the new
paint,  called Duco (from "DUpont COmpany").  Presenting the representative
with  samples  of  the  various hues, he asked the man which color he would
most  like  to  see  on his car if he had the option.  The executive played
along  and selected one.  Kettering then commenced the tour, making sure to
take  his  guest through every part of the factory and explain its workings
to him in detail, and also treating the visitor to a lengthy gourmet lunch.
It  was  4:3O pm in the afternoon before Kettering wrapped up the tour, and
when the executive got back to his car he realized instantly that something
had changed.  Kettering had had it completely repainted in his guests color
of choice while the tour was underway.

The  executive  left convinced, and Kettering got his new paint.  The first
car  to  be  mass produced in a rainbow of colors was the 1924 Oakland, but
within two years virtually every other car manufacturer had adopted the new
process.  Henry Ford, ever distrustful of change, was one of the last to do
so,  waiting  until  the end of 1926 before making the Flivver available in
color again.

GMs New Management

While  Durant  can scarcely have been happy about being ousted from his own
company,  he  at least left it in good hands.  Alfred P.  Sloan, who became
GM`s president in 1923, was a genius of management who took a debt-burdened
corporation swiftly back to prosperity and then on to an industry lead that
lasted nearly sixty years.

Sloan  realized  that  GM`s  biggest  advantage  over  Ford lay in the wide
variety  of  models  and styles it produced, enough to satisfy nearly every
taste  and  pocketbook.   To shore up his company`s relatively weak economy
car  line, he premiered the affordable Pontiac in the early 1920s.  He also
instituted  the  idea  of making new models yearly and using advertising to
sow  discontent  with  the  older  ones, introducing the concept of planned
obsolescence to ensure a market that would always be hungry for new cars.

Henry Ford disdained this idea, claiming that, "The man who buys one of our
products should never have to buy another.  It was a rather naive statement
from  a  man  producing  1.8  million  new  cars  each  year,  but  perhaps
understandable  given  his  long  success  with  a  singlew car model.  But
Sloan`s  strategy  would  prove to be more viable than Ford`s within a very
few  years,  as  rapidly declining sales of the Model T in favor of GM cars
attested.  By 1927 GM had overtaken Ford as the industry leader.

Although  a  good  thing  for  the  automobile  industry, this new attitude
towards cars which viewed them as a disposable commodity was perhaps not so
beneficial  to  the  American  consumer  in  the long run.  By the time the
decade  ended,  emphasis  in  the  car  companies  had  shifted  away  from
long-cherished  values of durability and economy to the newer ones of style
and  short  term  salability.   In  terms of mechanical endurance, the cars
prodced in 1929 were often inferior to ones produced fifteen years earlier,
but  the public didn`t mind.  When credit buying allowed the average family
to  get  a new car every year if they wanted it, who cared if the car would
be worn out in five?  In the immediate future, the new attitudes of the car
manufacturers  would contribute to the Stock Market Crash in 1929.  In much
later years, the emphasis on style over quality and practicality would give
Japan the opening it needed to bring down the American Auto King.

Ford Takes Over Lincoln

The  depression  of  1920 was as hard on Ford as it had been on GM, forcing
Henry Ford to resort to drastic measures.  He started by slashing prices on
the  Model  T  until  they  were  being  built  at a loss and making up the
difference  on  spares,  but  even that didn`t keep him from having to shut
down  factories.   He then devised a policy of requiring his dealers to pay
for each load of cars in cash, up front, which was a tremendous hardship on
tbe  dealers.   Any that dared to complain were threatened with the loss of
their  dealership  if  they  did not do as ordered, and most found a way to
stick it out until things improved.

Harry  Lelands  Lincoln  Motors  was not so fortunate.  Although his luxury
automobile was a good car, it was not particularly innovative, and 1920 was
a  terrible  year  to  try  to  launch  a new automobile make.  By 1921 the
company  was struggling to stay afloat, and the final blow came in the form
of a botched tax assessment requiring his company to pay $4,500,000, a full
nine  times  the  correct  amount.  Before the error was rectified, Lincoln
Motors sank into receivership.

Henry Fords wife was a dear friend of Harry Leland`s wife, and she resolved
not  to  let the Lelands go under.  She brought tremendous pressure to bear
on  her  husband  in  an  effort to convince him to bail out Lincoln.  Ford
eventually  did  as  she  asked,  but  he  waited  until  Lincoln went into
receivership  so  that  he could buy the company outright.  Earlier, Leland
had  approached  Ford  for  a  loan which could have saved the company from
receivership,  but  Ford  refused,  knowing full well that a loan would not
give him full control over the business the way that buying it would.

Late  in  1921  the deal was closed and Lincoln became a Ford property.  At
the  time  the  Deal was made, Henry Ford promised that he would keep Harry
Leland  and his son Wilfred in charge of their company, but nothing was put
down  in writing and Henry reneged on his promise in a shameful manner.  He
refused to allow either of the Lelands a voice in Lincoln, instead ignoring
them  completely.   The  Lelands, deeply regretting their decision to sell,
tried  to  buy  the  company  back  from  Ford  for the purchase price plus
interest  only  a  few  months after Ford bought it, but Ford wasn`t in the
least interested in selling.

When  a messemger came from Henry Ford`s office in 1922 saying that Wilfred
Leland`s  services were no longer required at Ford, Harry Leland walked out
the same day, as Ford no doubt expected.  Ford had absolute and uncontested
control  over  Lincoln.   Henry  Ford`s motivation for his treatment of the
Lelands  can only he guessed at.  It may have been that he was growing more
power  obsessed  as he aged, or perhaps it was some long delayed revenge on
Harry  Leland  for  working  with William Murphy to build Cadillac from the
remains of Henry Ford`s second company back in 1901.  Fore whatever reason,
it was the end of the Lelands, who were deserving of a better fate.

Farewell to the Flivver

For  the  first fifteen years after it appeared, the Model T Ford ruled the
American  road.   But  fifteen  years  is  a  very long time in an industry
advancing  as  quickly  as the American auto industry was doing, and it was
inevitable  that  the  Flivver  would  eventually  fall.  If Henry Ford had
possessed  more  foresight,  he  would  have  been better prepared when the
American  public  began  to  reject  his  car; but out of what seemed to be
willful  blindness  on  his part, the Automobile King stubbornly refused to
admit  that  times were changing.  He continued to produce the Model T long
past  the  time  when  any  other  manufacturer  would  have  seen that its
popularity was waning.

The  Model  T,  unchanged in all but the smallest details, was produced for
almost twenty years, The last car, number 15,007,003, officially rolled off
the  line  at  the  Highland Park factory on May 27, 1927 (although in fact
production  continued  until  June),  and  it was possible to buy brand new
Model  T  engines  from Ford as late as 1941!  Back in 1909, Henry Ford had
lost a minor parent suit to one Frederick W Ball, who invented a small part
that  Ford  used  in  his  Model T transmissions.  To settle the suit, Ford
agreed  to  pay $1 to Mr Ball for each Model T built, neither Ford nor Ball
could  ever have predicted that over 15 million of the cars would be built,
and that Ball would thus be made a millionaire many times over.

One  factor  not  already  mentioned that contributed to the decline of the
Model  T  was  the emergence of the used car market.  By the early 1920s, a
buyer  could  get  a secondhand vehicle of better quality and style for the
same  price  as  a  brand new Flivver.  Other companies fought back against
this  problem  by  introducing  the  yearly  model, but Ford disdained this
strategy  and  refused  to  employ  it,  to  his company`s detriment.  More
Chevrolets  were  produced  than  Fords for the first time in 1925.  Ford`s
refusal  to  make an enclosed car or update it in other ways (such as using
the  new color paints) gave GM an opening that it pursued eagerly, learning
and profiting from Ford`s mistakes.

When  Henry  Ford  finally gave in and admitted that the day of the Flivver
was  past,  he  did so with poor grace and a marked lack of good sense.  In
what  might  best  be described as a fit of pique, he held off on launching
his  new  car,  the  Model A, until six months after his factories had shut
down  Model T production.  His actions caused 23 assembly plants across the
nation  to close, throwing an estimated 60,000 men out of work, and forcing
his dealers to survive by selling nothing but spare parts!  The unnecessary
discontinuity  in  production cost the Ford Motor Company an estimated $250
million  and  its  claim to the mantle of industry leadership which General
Motors gladly assumed.

By  the  time the Model A emerged in December of 1927, people were so eager
to  see  the  first  new  Ford  since the Model T that huge crowds gathered
around  the showrooms for a glimpse.  Although the Model A was not terribly
innovative  by  the  standards of the day, it was a vast improvement on the
Model  T,  and its status as the Flivver`s successor practically guaranteed
that it would be bought in large numbers.  It was sufficiently popular that
when  the  new  U.S.   currency  was  designed  in 1928, the picture of the
Treasury  Building that was created for the back of the ten dollar bill was
engraved complete with a Model A Ford parked in front.

FROM DEPRESSION TO WAR : 1930 - 1941

Much  of  the  potential car market in America was still unsaturated by the
end  of  the  1920s.   The  average  man  had managed to get a taste of the
freedom  of  the  open  road,  but  he still often had to contend with poor
roads,  undependable  vehicles,  lack  of  mechanics  to repair them, and a
scarcity  of replacement parts.  The top speed of an average automobile was
around  35  mph.  Clearly there was room for improvement but advances would
have  to  wait,  as there were bigger problems ahead for the auto industry,
and the rest of the United States as well.

The Great Depression Strikes

In  October  of  1929 the United States finally paid the price for the wild
overindulgence  of the American public in credit buying and the uninhibited
rise  of  stock  market  speculation.   On Black Tuesday the New York Stock
Exchange crashed and the Great Depression was underway.  In the year of the
crash  Detroit  produced five million new automobiles, and one out of every
five  people  in  the United States owned his or her own car.  A year later
production  had  sunk  to  three  million,  and  by the depths of the Great
Depression  in 1932 it was down to just over one million, the lowest it had
been in ten years.  Many car companies that managed to survive the twenties
found the rug pulled out from under them.

Although  the  ruined  economy  caused  new  car production to plummet, the
number  of  cars  actually in use stayed remarkably constant throughout the
worst  years  of  the  Depression.   For many families the car was the last
possession  to  be  sold,  as  it could be used to travel long distances in
search of work.  In a pinch, it could even be lived in.

Once  the  worst  was  over  recovery for the auto industry came slowly but
steadily.   By  1937  production had risen to four million and in 1941, the
year  before  America  entered  World  War  II,  it  was  almost back up to
pre-crash  levels.   1941 saw several production milestones passed, such as
the  production  of  the four millionth Plymouth, the five millionth Dodge,
and the twenty nine millionth Ford.  Chrysler somehow managed to maintain a
strong  research  and  development department throughout the Depression and
pioneered  several innovations such as overdrive and a novel type of engine
suspension.  In 1933 Chrysler`s sales surpassed Ford`s.

Perhaps  as  a  response  to  the  harshness  and  lack of amenities in the
Depression, the biggest changes on the automobiles of this time came in the
area   of   driver   and  passenger  comfort  and  conveinience.   Heaters,
air-conditioning, powered windshield washers and wipers, and defrosters all
debuted  during  the  thirties.   Car  radios  were  first  offered  by the
Philadelphia  Storage  Battery  Corporation  in  1927  and  by  1935 it was
estimated  that there were more than one million radio equipped cars in the
United States.  Several early versions of the automatic transmission became
available  to car buyers, although the prototypes were prone to breakdowns.
The  technology  was greatly improved during World War II, and by the 1940s
the  first modern style automatic transmission, virtually trouble free, had
appeared.

Changing Styles

Right  in  the  middle  of  the decade as the nation was starting to climb,
however  painfully,  out of the Depression, two cars appeared on the market
that  would greatly influence modern styles and forever change the way that
car  bodies  were  designed.   As has been the case with automobiles almost
since  their  inception,  being  ahead  of their time resulted in both cars
becoming commercial failures.

In  the  early  1930s  a  Chrysler  engineer  and designer named Carl Breer
pioneered  the  idea  of  wind  Tunnel  testing.   His earliest trials with
typical  cars  of  the  day  revealed that they were more aerodynamic going
backwards  than  forwards, and Breer resolved to change this by designing a
"back  to  front"  car.  The result, in 1934, was the Chrysler Airflow, the
first  automobile  to employ streamlining.  The Airflow had, in addition to
its  dynamic  styling,  all-steel  construction  and  the  first  automatic
overdrive ever featured on an American car.

Unfortunately  for  Chrysler,  the car was late to arrive in the showrooms,
giving  its  competitors time to spread disparaging rumors about it and, as
luck  would have it, the first deveral thousand Airflows to be produced did
in   fact   have   some   serious   construction  problems.   Although  the
manufacturing   errors   were  quickly  eliminated,  the  car  developed  a
reputation  for  unreliability  that,  when  combined  with its drastically
different  look,  was  enough to assure poor sales.  The car never earned a
cent for Chrysler.

The  other  revolutionary  car  of  the period was the Cord 810 produced in
1935.   Designed by the maker of the Duesenberg, it was intended as a cheap
version  of  the famous luxury car.  The style was radically different from
anything  seen  before.   It  included  a  "coffin  nose"  hood, horizontal
louvers,  headlights  that disappeared into the fenders, no running boards,
and  a  fastback  sedan body.  It was voted the best looking car at the New
York Auto show in the yeat it premiered, and in 1951 the New York Museum of
Modern  Art  recognized  the  design  as  one  of  the  finest  examples of
industrial styling of all time.

One  other  style  of car which arrived in the 1930s was the station wagon,
often  called  a  "woody"  because  its body was made of wood.  The station
wagon  did  not become a passenger car until the 1940s, being considered at
first  a  utility  vehicle like a truck or van.  It gained popularity first
with  farmers, explorers, film studios, and hotels, until by the late 1940s
ordinary consumers had adopted it as the perfect family car.

Fords New Engine

In  1932  the  presidency of the Ford Motor Company was taken over by Henry
Ford`s  son,  Edsel.   The  transfer  of  power  was  in name only; in most
respects,  Henry  Ford  still  ran  the  company  as  he always had.  Edsel
struggled  against  his father`s control during all his years as president,
but only rarely succeeded in bucking the wishes of iron willed Henry.

In  the  same  year  Ford  introduced  the  first V8 engine available in an
economy car.  V8 engines had first been introduced in 1914 by Cadillac, but
had remained an option only for the wealthy until Ford began to build them.
The  reasoning  Henry  used  to arrive at this decision was typical of him:
"We`re  going from a four to an eight because Chevrolet is going to a six."
Henry's business strategy could often be summed up as one of not doing what
anyone else was doing.  He avoided such worthwhile innovations as hydraulic
braking  and  longitudinal  springs  solely because the competition all had
them.

The  Ford  V8 gave excellent performance for the price range, and the other
manufacturers  took  a  while  to  catch  up.  In spite of Ford`s image and
performance  advantages, however, sales continued to slip - Chevrolet sales
topped  Ford`s  in  every  year of the decade except 1935, and from 1936 on
Ford ranked third behind GM and Chrysler in overall sales.  The main reason
for  this  was that Ford only produced two makes, as compared to six for GM
and  four  for  Chrysler.   The cheap Ford and the expensive Lincoln left a
huge  gap in the middle of the market, and the other companies prospered by
filling  it.   In  the  hopes  of regaining pre eminence in the field, Ford
introduced  a  third  make  in  1938 to bridge its price gap, and called it
Mercury.

Part  of Fords difficulty in profiting from the V8 lay in the fact that the
cars  were valued for their performance by high schoolers and college kids,
but  as  consumers  these  groups  could rarely afford to buy new.  Another
customer  base  that appreciated the V8 for its performance, but which Ford
could  not  depend  on for income, was the criminal underclass - Bonnie and
Clyde  drove a V8 Ford, as did John Dillinger.  After becoming Public Enemy
Number  One,  Dillinger  wrote to Ford, saying.  "Hello Old Pal, you have a
wonderful  car.  It`s a treat to drive one." Of course, Ford had its better
class  customers  as  well;  the  President  drove a Ford V8, as did famous
aviator Charles Lindenburg.

There  were a few other factors that may have contributed to the decline of
Ford  in  the  thirties.   For  one thing, Henry Ford`s public image became
tarnished  by  his  vicious anti-union actions, and also his outspoken anti
Semitism.   For another, in spite of their excellent engines, his cars were
in  other  ways  behind the times technologically, with outmoded suspension
and brake systems.

Ford`s  other notable product in this period was a new model for its luxury
line,  Lincoln.   In  1939  Edsel  Ford  took  a  standard  Lincoln  Zephyr
automobile  and instructed a friend of his to redesign it according to some
ideas Edsel had in mind.  The car was originally intended to be for Edsel`s
personal  use  only,  but a number of his friends saw it and were delighted
with  the  new  styling.   Over  two hundred orders were placed for the car
before anyone even had any idea that it would ever be produced!  Responding
to the enthusiasm for the car, Ford instituted a limited production run and
the Lincoln Continental was born.  The car sold on styling and image alone,
since otherwise it was identical to the Zephyr.

WORLD WAR II AND AFTER : 1941 - 1950

By  1939,  the "Big Three" had consolidated their hold on the American auto
industry  had  accounted  for 90% of auto sales.  Five smaller makes fought
over  the  remaining 10% of the market And then for three and a half years,
all  American car manufacturers abandoned their rivalry and joined together
in a huge effort to supply their country`s needs for war.

Detroit Goes to War

On  December  7,  1941  the United States entered World War II.  Two months
later  all  automobile  production  except  for  military vehicles ended as
Detroit  shifted  over  to  war  production.   The  impact  of the American
automobile industry on the United States war effort was enormous.  Over $29
billion  worth  of  military  materials,  including  planes,  jeeps, tanks,
ammunition,  and parts and supplies of all types were produced in Detroit -
one-fifth the total American output for the entire war.

By the time passenger car production was again sanctioned, on July 1, 1945,
the  pent  up  demand  for  new automobiles was tremendous.  But before the
carmakers  could start supplying automobiles to answer that demand they had
a  few  hurdles  to  cross.   For one thing raw materials, especially sheet
steel,  were hard to come by.  For another, the forces of labor had started
to  become organized and were readying themselves for a big battle with the
auto industry.

Ford   started   its  produclion  lines  again  only  two  days  after  the
restrictions  were  lifted.   GM waited until October 1945, but in November
the  company  was  hit  with  a nationwide strike called by the United Auto
Workers,  who  had  organized  ten years previous but were still struggling
unsuccessfully  to  gain  official  recognition.   Chrysler, out of fear of
similar  strikes, put off restarting its lines for even longer.  Throughout
1946  strikes at auto plants and parts manufacturers made production highly
undependable.  By the time the year was up, however, the guaranteed minimum
wage  and  forty  hour  work week had been agreed upon and the worst of the
labor strife was over.

The  final  thing  the carmakers had to contend with was the postwar Truman
administration.   Thanks  to  the shortage of such vital materials as sheet
steel,  car  production  costs  were sky high in 1945.  The Office of Price
Administration  however,  handed  down a decree stating that new car prices
should  be  based  on  1942  costs  "It  costs  us  $1,O41  to make a car",
complained  Henry  Ford  II,  new  president  of  Ford  Motors, "but we are
restricted  to selling it at a maximum of $780." In 1947 the price controls
were  lifted  and  the  auto  industry  could  at  last get back to serious
business.

                     END OF PART TWO
                     -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


                    DETROIT - THE OPEN ROAD - Part 3
                    =======================---------


Postwar Boom and Bust
 
The  demand  for  new  automobiles  was  so  high  in  postwar America that
practically  anything on wheels could and did sell.  Numerous new carmakers
appeared  on  the  market flourished briefly, then sank when the boom eased
off a few years later.  The bust following the boom also killed off several
venerable  luxury  carmakers  such  as  Packard  and  Studebaker,  as their
customers deserted for Cadillacs and the Lincoln Continental.

The  first  cars  produced immediately after the war were built from prewar
designs.   Truly  new  car models did not appear until the years of 1946 to
1948.    Several  of  the  new  features  of  the  postwar  designs  became
trademarks:   the portholes just ahead of the front door on the Buicks were
standards  of  the  make  from 1948 to the 1970s, and Cadillac acquired its
famous  fins.   Chrysler  lost  ground  to  Ford  steadily  in this period,
dropping  to third in 1950 as Ford surged up to second.  The lost sales can
be  attributed  to  a  combination of Chrysler`s failure to bring out a new
model  until  1953 and the revitalization of Ford that occurred during this
period with the advent of Henry Ford II as the company`s new President.

Edsel  Ford  passed  away  prematurely  at the age of 50 in 1945.  His son,
Henry  Ford  II,  then a 28 year old ensign in the U.S.  Navy, was released
from  his  duties  to  assume  the presidency of Ford in his fathers place.
Henry  II,  unlike  his  father, had been allowed to attend college and had
graduated  from  Yale  before joining up.  When he arrived at Ford he found
the companys management moribund and extremely inefficient, and at once set
about  cleaning  house.  Unlike Edsel, Henry II had little to fear from his
grandfather who was by that time old and growing infirm.

One  of  the  first  things  Henry  II did was fire Harry Bennet, the first
Henry`s  much  feared and disliked security chief.  Then in 1946 he brought
in a group of ten young outsiders, known collectively as "The Wizz Kids" to
revamp  the  company  from  the  ground  up.   The group included prominent
academics  from  Princeton  and  Harvard,  as  well as future U.S.  Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara.  The whiz Kids, led by Henry II, made a sweeping
reorganization,  adopteD  GM`s  decentralized  management  svstem, improved
labor  relations, ad stabilized the company`s shaky finances.  In 1949 Ford
sold  over  a  million cars, the first time that mark had been passed since
1930.   The  following  year,  Ford  recaptured second place from Chrysler,
although the Whiz Kids never did quite succeed in their aim of beating GM.


THE COMING OF THE CAR CULTURE : 1951 - 1958

An average 1949 car in the U.S.  cost $1,800, had an eight cylinder engine,
a  heater, and a radio.  Many had automatic transmissions.  Around 1950 the
first  of what we would now consider "economy cars" small in size, durable,
and  fuel  efficient  started to appear in Europe.  In America by contrast,
cars  were approaching their peak in size, were often covered with two tone
paint  schemes  and  gleaming  chrome  on every surface, and were generally
notorious gas guzzlers.

Americas  roads received another boost from the government in 1956 with the
passing  of  the Interstate Highway Act, which provided federal money for a
nationwide system of four lane superhighways.  The nation`s road network at
the  time  topped  out  at approximately three million miles.  The American
consumer  wanted  big, powerful cars, to travel long distances in speed and
confort.   Conspicous  consumption,  particularly  with  respect  to  one`s
automobile,  was  the  rage.   Gadgets of all sorts proliferated, power and
prestige  became  emphasized over utility and real performance, engines got
larger, and body styling became more than a little outrageous.

The  idea  of the "dream car" or "concept car" made its first appearance in
these   years.   These  were  vehicles  never  intended  to  go  into  mass
production.   Some  of  them  were  even  missing such details as a working
engine.   The  purpose  in  building  such  a  car was to test a new engine
concept or sample the public`s reaction to a new body styling, or sometimes
just to suit the fanciful whim of a chief executive

Americas First Compact

Until 1950 all American cars came in basically a single size, and that size
was  "Big".   The  wide  variety  in  body size that can be found today was
completely  unknown.   The  first  relatively  small American car to find a
market was the Nash Rambler, launched in 1950.

George Mason, president of Nash car company (one of the few independents to
survive  past  the end of the postwar boom)" knew that small cars had never
been successful on the American market He reasoned that his failure was due
to the marketing of such cars as cheap vehicles, which thereforevmarked the
buyer  as  someone  of limited means.  The key to selling small cars, Mason
thought  was  to build a small car that people would buy because they liked
it, not because it was inexpensive - and thus was the Nash Rambler born.

The  Rambler  wasn`t  an expensive car but it did cost more than the bottom
line Fords and Chevrolets and so did not appear "cheap".  It sold very well
for  Nash  in 1950 and 1951, but by then the other independents had learned
from  Nash's  success  and  brought out compacts of their own, cutting into
Nash`s  market.   In  1955  the  Rambler  was discontinued, just after Nash
merged  with Hudson to form American Motors.  Three years later the Rambler
was  reintroduced  and  did even better in its second outing than it had in
its first, selling briskly from 1959 - 1961.  Its success, coupled with the
success  of  a  diminutive  German  invader  called  the Volkswagen Beetle,
prompted the Big Three to launch their own compacts in 1959.

The Sports Car and the Youth Movement

The  heart  of  the  Car  Culture  in  the  United  States  was the growing
independence  and  freedom  of  movement that American youth found with the
wheels  of  their  choice.   The  car  and  its care and feeding became the
centerpiece  of an entire way of life for millions of Americans between the
ages of fifteen and twenty-five.

High-schoolers  and college age kids found happiness in one of two types of
cars:   either  the  big  boat  like vehicle into which six to eight people
could  be  packed  along  with  supplies  for a trip to the beach or to the
movies,  or the speedy two-passenger sports cars which appeared late in the
decade.   The  Ford  Galaxie  was  a good example of the first type of car,
while  the  two  sports  cars of choice were the Chevrolet Corvette and the
Ford Thunderbird, both of which premiered in 1954.

The  Corvette was designed by GM style chief Harley Earl, who was hoping to
design  a  low  priced sports car suitable for his college aged son and his
friends.  His initial design was exhibited as a concept car in 1952 and was
such  a  hit  that  Chevrolet  went into production the next year.  To save
weight and cost, the Corvette had the first all fiberglass body.

The  new  car was priced at $3,440, a disappointment to Harvey Earl who had
hoped for some thing closer to $1,000.  The early "Vettes" though prized by
collectors, were not considered very good cars by the people who made them.
But  the 1956 Corvette had a V8 engine gave the magic advertising figure of
one horsepower per cubic inch, and sales took off.  The 1957 model featured
more  improvements  including better suspension, fuel injection, and a four
speed  transmission.   It could go from zero to sixty miles per hour in 5.7
seconds,  a  respectable  figure  even  by  today`s standards.  In 1962 the
Corvette  engine  was  placed  in an all new body and released as the Sting
Ray, which became the single word Stingray by 1969.  The Stingray stayed in
production, almost unchanged, until 1983.

The  Thunderbird,  which  debuted  in  the same year as the Corvette, had a
regular  steel  body  but  a  bigger and better performance engine than the
original "Vette.  It also cost about $500 less, a significant difference to
a young person with a limited income.  The Thunderbird only stayed a sports
car  for  the  first  three  years  of  its life, and then it became a four
passenger convertable.

The  Car  Culture  even  had its own sacred hymns, sung by the likes of the
Beach  Boys and Jan & Dean:  "Little Deuce Coupe", "Shutdown" "Fun Fun Fun"
"409"  "Dead  Mans Curve", and "Little GTO".  The latter was a tribute to a
Pontiac  car  that  owed its name to a stroke of advertising genius by then
Pontiac General Manager John Z DeLorean.

The  initials  "GTO"  were originally used by the Italian carmaker Ferrari.
The  acronym  stood  for  "Gran  Turismo  Omologato"  or  homologated Grand
Touring,  and  was  a  designation used on Ferrari racing cars that made it
into  general  production.  The car was DeLoreans special baby and he snuck
the  design  through  when his superiors weren`t looking.  By the time they
learned  of  it,  it  was  already in production and much too late to stop.
Sports  car enthusiasts raised an enormous row about Pontiacs usurpation of
their  beloved  letters,  but  as  "Car & Driver" magazine pointed out, the
Pontiac  GTO  could  beat  a Ferrari on a straightaway and the Ferrari cost
five times as much.  The letter stayed

Fords Infamous Edsel

The  Ford Motor Company was doing much better in 1954 than it had been in a
long time, thanks to Henry Ford II and his Whiz Kids.  But it still had not
caught  up with GM.  It was decided that ford needed a second middle priced
car  to accompany the Mercury, as GM had three cars in that range (Pontiac,
Oldsmobile, and Buick).

Great  effort was expended in selecting a fitting name for a brand-new Ford
marque.  Ford`s advertising agency supplied a list of 6,000 to choose from,
including  several  names  that  were  eventually  used  elsewhere, such as
Citation,  Pacer,  and  Ranger.   Market  research  manager  David  Wallace
contacted  poet  Marianne Moore to ask for suggestions and received back of
list  of  possible names including "Intelligent Whale", "Resilient Bullet",
"Mongoose  Civique",  "Taper Racer", and finally in a burst of inspiration,
"Utopian  Turtletop".  Miss Moore had declined any fee for her help, saying
it  would  inhibit  her  creativity.  Although none of her suggestions were
even remotely usable, there seemed to be no hard feelings either way for at
Christmastime  the  poet  received a large bouquet of red roses with a card
attached   saying   "Merry   Christmas   to   our  favorite  Turtletopper".
Eventually,  despite  objections  from  the Ford family, the name Edsel was
chosen in honor of Henry II`s father.

Unfortunatly  Ford did not put nearly as much effort into the actual car as
it  did  into  the name.  To economize, bodies and engines were mostly from
other  Ford  and  Mercury  cars.   The  distinctive horse collar grille was
intended  to  be the car`s mark of distinction, but it was not a particular
good  choice.   Edsel  production was mostly done hastily at the end of the
day  and  as  a  result  often  suffered from poor quality workmanship.  It
quickly acquired a reputation for unreliability.

The  car  was  widely hyped, but it was not really an innovative car in any
true  sense  of the word, being made as it was from parts of other ordinary
cars.   Ford`s  timing  was nothing short of terrible - the Edsel was a big
car,  and  the  day of the compact was just around the corner.  At the time
the  Edsel  was  being  developed, the midsize car accounted for 40% of the
market; by the time it debuted, that had dropped to 25%.  The Edsel did not
sell  and  stayed  in  production  only until 1960.  The failure of the new
marque may have cost Ford as much as $250 million.

THE MODERN AGE

The  demise of the outmoded Edsel in 1958 heralded the beginning of the new
age  for the automobile.  American cars had become nearly too big to drive,
too  clumsy  to operate, and too expensive to maintain.  Consumers began to
look for something different.  It was during this period that European cars
reappeared on the American automobile scene, in small numbers at first, and
then in waves of increasing size.

At  the  beginning  the  American  auto  companies  seemed  to be up to the
challenge presented by the new preference for compact cars, but their early
triumph  was  not  destined  to  last.   This  decade was the time when the
confidence  of  the  US  automakers  began  a dangerous downward slide into
complacency.   The  emphasis  on  year-end  profits and the tyranny of cost
accounting   management  led  to  a  distinct  short-sightedness.   Capital
investment   was  discouraged,  no  new  machine  tools  were  designed  or
purchased, and research and development departments went begging for funds.
By the time the 1970s rolled around, the Big Three were long overdue for an
unpleasant wake up call.

THINKING SMALL : 1959 - 1964

The  Compact Revolution in the U.S.  auto industry came ahout as a response
to the success of the Nash Rambler, combined with the disturbing appearance
of  small  European  economy  cars  on  the  American  market in increasing
numbers.   Until  WWII the only imports sold in the U.S.  were large luxury
cars  such  as  Mercedes, Minerva, Renault, and Rolls Royce.  After the war
the  import  market  focused  on  sporty cars such as the MG Midget and the
Jaguar  XK120.   The  first  imported  economy car to make an impact on the
American  market was the tiny Volkswagen Beetle - and that impact, small at
first, soon mushroomed to enormous proportions.

The Little Car That Could

The  Volkswagen  car  got  its  start  in  1930s Germany, when Adolf Hitler
commissioned  Dr.  Federnand Porsche to develop a cheap "people`s car" (the
literal translation of Volkswagen) in order to keep automobile money inside
Germany.   The  cars  were  first built in 1938, but only about 100,000 VWs
were made before WWII arrived, halting production.

After  the  German  defeat  the  Volkswagen plant was offered up as part of
payments  for war damages, but the American and British experts scorned the
offer,  declaring  the  little car to be worthless.  Shortly thereafter, in
1945,  a  handful  of  people  who  had  been employed by VW before the war
requested  permission  to  go  back to producing cars, and were granted it.
The  VW  factory  had  been bombed during the fighting, so when the workers
returned  they  found  the plant barely usable with blown out windows and a
damaged,  leaky  roof.   Nevertheless, they set to work.  Due to the severe
materials  shortages,  their first handful of cars were built entirely from
salvage  parts.   This  lack  of  supplies  forced them to concentrate on a
single  model, and they chose the one that had been the most popular before
the war, the little VW 1200 Beetle.

By  the  end of 1946 they had somehow managed to raise production to 10,000
cars.   The  next  year  the  Allied Government stepped in and put Heinrich
Nordhoff, former head of GM`s German line, Opel in charge.  Nordhoff opened
markets throughout Europe to bring in foreign money to stabilize Volkswagen
and the company never looked back.

The  Volkswagen  was  the first car built to create a market, not to fill a
need.   Like  the Model T before it, the Beetle was simple in design, plain
to  look  at,  and  economical to operate.  It was introduced in America in
1949  and  its  sales  were  slow for several years thereafter.  Volkswagen
persevered  however  and  in  1960  half a million Beetles were sold in the
United  States.   The "Bug" became a huge favorite on college campuses, and
by  the  time the decade wore out five million of the funny little cars had
been  purchased  by  American  consumers.   Then in 1972 the Beetle did the
unthinkable,  stealing  the title of most popular car ever by exceeding the
Model  T`s record of fifteen million cars sold.  By the time the series was
discontinued in 1978, 19,200,000 Beetles had been produced

The "Big Three" Respond

The  success  of  the  Nash  Rambler  and  the  VW Beetle combined with the
encroachment of other European compact cars on the American auto industries
territory  convinced  General  Motors, Ford, and Chrysler that some sort of
response  was  called  for.  It came in 1959 as all three companies, acting
almost  in unison, each introduced a new compact car for the 1960 season GM
produced  the  Chevrolet  Corvair; Ford, the Ford Falcon; and Chrysler, the
Chrysler Valiant.

The Valient was a standard Chrysler car engine and chassis with new styling
and  construction.   The  Chevrolet Corvair was more unorthodox, with a new
body  and a novel rear mounted flat six air cooled engine.  The Ford Falcon
was  the  most conventional in design, but even with that it was a full two
feet  shorter than the Ford Fairlane.  The Falcon was the dullest, but sold
the best of the three; in its first year it represented nearly half of Ford
sales.   In  later years, new Ford vicepresident Lee Laccoca spruced up the
Falcon`s look to make it more exciting and sales went up still further.

All  Three  cars  were an unqualified success, proving that the time of the
compact  had  arrived.   The  European  competitors  quickly faded from the
scene,  with  the  singular  exception  of  the  hardy  little Beetle which
actually increased its market share during this period.

The  success  of  the  compact cars, which later evolved into the so called
intermediates,  led  to an expansion in available automobile types.  In the
early 1950s, a car generally had one body shell which could be made in four
door  sedan,  two  door  coupe, topless convertable, and station wagon, all
fitted  on  top  of one engine and chassis.  When a range of engines became
available  at  the  start of the Sixties, two new classes of cars appeared,
categorized  more  by  engine  type  than  body type.  The "pony car" was a
powerful  engine  fitted  into an intermediate coupe or compact body shell,
while a "muscle car" was a powerful engine fitted into a sedan body.

The  first  "pony  car",  was,  of course, the Ford Mustang, from which the
class  derived  its name.  Some historians have called the Mustang the most
significant American car of the 1960s, for it did what the designers of the
Edsel  had  tried  (and miserably failed) to do:  it captured the spirit of
the times.

The Mustang was the baby of vice-president Lee Lacocca.  Laccoca started as
a  Ford  salesman in Allentown Pennsylvania, and made a vow to himself that
he  would be a Ford vice president by his thirty fifth birthday.  He missed
the  mark,  but not by much - his promotion to VP can through just eighteen
days late.  Lacocca, young himself, was devoted to the concept of "thinking
young" and realized the the Baby Boomer children born in the post war years
were  nearing  driving  age  and  would want something different from their
parents.   At  the  same  time  women were becoming professionals in larger
numbers  than  ever before and acquiring buying power and they too would be
looking   for  a  car  of  their  own.   Lacocca  reasoned  that  a  small,
individually styled car without the family sedan image of existing compacts
might fit the bill for these consumers.

The  original  Mustang  design  was tested by racing drivers, who loved it.
But  Lacocca  reasoned  that  a  car beloved by racing drivers might not be
quite right for the average American, so the Mustang went back into design,
re  emerging  in  1964  to instant runaway success.  It was available in an
enormous  variety  of  options, so that each car could be customized to the
buyer's  personal tastes and requirements.  Five engines were offered, plus
six  transmissions,  three  suspension packages, three brake systems, three
wheel  sizes,  and many other comfort and performance option.  The simplest
unenhanced Mustang sold for $2,368, while a souped up version could cost as
much  as  $3,850.   More  than 100,000 Mustangs were sold in the first four
months  of production, and more than a million in the first year.  Chrysler
and  GM  rushed to jump on the bandwagon, launching the Chrysler Camaro and
the Pontiac Firebird as competitors.

WASHINGTON STEPS IN : 1965 - 1970

By  the early 1960s, cars had been in common use in America long enough for
some  of  the  difficulties  associated  with  their  operation  to  become
apparent.   Traffic  congestion  became a problem, causing road surfaces to
degrade   and  eroding  the  automobile's  great  advantage  door  to  door
transportation.   For  example,  according to New York City`s Department of
Transportation,  the average speed of horse and buggy in downtown Manhattan
in  1907  was  11.5  mph.   Today,  the average speed by car in Manhattan`s
overcrowded  streets  is  9.8 mph, while the average for horses remains the
same.   And elsewhere in the country, Southern California discovered to its
dismay  that  its  reliance  on  the automobile combined with its local air
patterns   was  rapidly  depriving  the  people  who  lived  there  of  the
opportunity to breathe.

Automakers,  concerned  as  always  with sales and little else, steadfastly
ignored  any  problems  associated  with  their  cars  or  the use thereof,
considering  it  the  consumer`s  business  to look out for himself "Caveat
emptor" were the watchwords for the Big Three and the smaller manufacturers
as  well.  But the 1960s were a time of great social activity in the United
States, and it was inevitable that eventually the eye of the activist would
fall upon the American auto industry.  When it did, it did not like what it
saw.   Before  the  decade was out, the Big Three would discover themselves
wrestling with new legislation designed to force them to pay more attention
to issues they had rarely considered in the past, such as automobile safety
for both passengers and pedestrians, and engine exhaust emissions.

The new legislation caused significant changes in the way new cars would be
designed  in  the  future.   Until  the mid 60s, car design was dictated by
consumers  and  accountants,  with engineers and stylists balancing between
what  the  public wanted and what the carmakers could afford to produce for
them.   With  the  advent  of the new laws, car manufacturers were suddenly
presented  with  a  third  factor to figure into their designs.  By setting
mandatory  standards  for  safety  and  pollution,  Washington  spurred new
developments  in  the  fields  of  engine  design,  body design, and safety
devices  such  as  seat  belts  and  air  bags.  Without this impetus, such
advances might have arrived decades later or not at all.

Nader the Raider

For  many  years, the prevailing wisdom in Detroit was "safety doesn`t sell
cars".   As far back as the 1930s the Airflow had touted its all steel body
as  a  safety feature and by 1952 Nash and Muntz had installed passive seat
belts  in  their  automobiles,  but  neither  advance helped the cars sell.
Things  would  change  radically in the midsixties, starting in 1965 when a
crusading   young  lawyer  named  Ralph  Nader  researched  the  automobile
industry`s  history  on  safety  and  wrote  a  book,  Unsafe at Any Speed,
detailing his findings.

Nader  concluded that although the big companies had the technology, money,
and  personnel  available  to make their cars significantly safer, they had
refused  to  do  so  even  when  their  designs  were  close to negligently
hazardous.   Specific  targets of Nader`s book included Buicks undependable
power braking system, the famous Cadillac fins which impaled bicyclists and
pedestrians,  and  the rear swing axle on the Chevrolet Corvair.  This last
problem  was  one of Nader`s paRticular demons, as the design flaw had been
pointed  out  to  Chevrolet by one of its own engineers before The car went
intO  production  and  the  big carmaker had ignored the warning.  The rear
swing  axle  had been used successfully in cars before, but the Corvair had
rear  mounted engine and a body design that put most of the car`s weight at
the  back  of  the  vehicle;  on a turn, the extra weight caused the inside
wheel  to  lean  at  a sharp enough angle that it could fold completely and
cause  a  deadly  rollover.   Nader`s  attack,  combined with the Corvair`s
higher production costs, drove the car off the market within a few years

After  publishing  his  book,  Nader testified before the U.S.  Congress on
automobile  safety  and was influential in getting the National Traffic and
Motor  Vehicle  Safety  Act  passed  later  in the year.  This law gave the
federal government the right to regulate the design of automobiles, trucks,
and motorcycles so as to protect the public safety.  Since its passage more
than   fifty   safety   standards   have  been  imposed  regulating  safety
windshields,  seat  belts,  head  restraints, brakes, tires, lighting, door
strength, and roof strength.

Sadly,  the  new  safety legislation wasn`t enough to prevent the tragedies
associated  with  the  Ford  Pinto.   The  Pinto, Ford`s entry into the new
subcompact  field,  made  its debut in 1970.  To save weight on the design,
Ford`s  engineers had eliminated a number of rear subframe members from the
car`s  body.   This  left  the  gas tank more vulnerable to compression and
rupture  in a collision than it was on heavier cars.  The gas tank also had
a  filler  neck  that  could  easily  tear  loose  in  a crash and fill the
passenger compartment with highly flammable gasoline fumes.  In the case of
a  rear  end  collision,  the Pinto could - and sometimes did - go up in an
explosive fireball.

One  victim  of a Pinto explosion sued Ford for negligence and won an award
totalling  $128.5  million.  On appeal the amount was reduced, but it still
cost  Ford  $6.5  million and an enormous amount of bad publicity.  The bad
press  got  worse  once  Henry  Ford  II`s contemptuous views on automobile
safety  became  public  knowledge,  and  The  Ford  company was a long time
recovering

Fumes and Furor

Safety  considerations  were  not  the only automobile issue to capture the
interest  of  the  American  public  in the late 1960s.  Driven by tales of
Southern  California  cities  such  as  Los  Angeles,  where old people and
children  could  not walk outside on some days during the summer due to the
poisonous  air,  the  federal  government  passed the Clean Air Act in 1970
establishing   acceptable  levels  of  exhaust  emissions  such  as  carbon
monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons.

The  Clean  Air  Act  also  set restrictions on leaded gasoline, the use of
which  originated  in  1933  when  Charles  Kettering of GM discovered that
adding  tetraethyl  lead  to  gasoline  cured engine knock.  Burning leaded
gasoline,  however,  spreads airborne lead into the atmosphere where it can
be  taken  up and absorbed into the body through the lungs.  High levels of
lead are toxic, especially to small children, and lead from leaded gasoline
was  a  major contributor to the number of cases of lead poisoning in urban
children in America during the 1960s and 1970s.

The  two easiest ways to lower levels of unacceptable auto emissions are by
lowering  engine  temperatures  and  by  use of a device called a catalytic
converter,  now standard equipment on American cars, which converts exhaust
fumes  to  water  and  carbon  dioxide.  The use of the catalytic converter
provided  the  other nmajor impetus for the abandonment of leaded gasoline,
as  the  lead  in  the  fuel coats the active catalyst in the converter and
destroys the devices function.

In  spite  of  two  decades of air pollution legislation and the subsequent
improvement of air quality in many cities in the United States, the problem
is  far  from  solved.   Several Southern California cities, unable to find
another  solution,  are  considering  completely  banning  gasoline burning
vehicles from the city limits by the year 2010, which may lead to a revival
in  the  use  of  the  electric  car.   Increased use of mass transport and
alternative,  cleaner  burning  fuels  may  be other answers, as may be the
development  of  engines  other  than the standard internal combustion type
which  run  more  cleanly,  such  as the Diesel and the external-combustion
Stirling engine.

To complicate matters even further, studies have shown that current methods
of  emissions control may be drastically insufficient to solve the problem.
Catalytic  Converters, though very beneficial, have a limited life span and
if  not  replaced,  become  useless  and  allow  exhaust  to  pass  through
unchanged.   There  is also concern that one of the by products of ctalytic
converters,  carbon  dioxide,  may  lead to global warming if production is
unchecked.   Furthur  research  has  indicated that problems may exist with
exhaust  gases  previously  thought  to  be  harmless:   ozone for example,
damages    crops    and    lowers   air   quality   while,   paradoxically,
chlorofluourcarbons   emitted   by   automobile   air-conditioners  may  be
contributing  to  the  depletion of the planets natural high-altitude ozone
layer.  Even with air pollution controls in place, automobile exhaust still
accounts for 90% of the air pollution in modern cities.

DETROIT'S CRISIS YEARS : 1971 - 1979

Although  the  United  States  would  cling  to  her  top seat in the world
automobile  industry  for nearly a decade yet, by 1970 it was already clear
that  her  grip  on  the  position was slipping.  America`s cars were still
examples  of style over substance, built to break rather than last, bearing
gasoline  thirsty  engines,  and  suffering  from  bad publicitv due to the
public`s perceived indifference of the Big Three to concerns such as safety
and  pollution  control.   The advent of the Japanese import in conjunction
with  two serious fuel crises within five years would prove a one two punch
that  would  bring  down  the  Auto  King  after  nearly  seventy  years of
domination.

American Motors Tries Something New

The  struggling  American  Motors was having a hard time competing with the
Big Three in 1970.  The company`s executives decided to introduce a new car
into  the  market  to compete with the VW Beetle instead, hoping that since
the  Big  Three appeared not to be interested in that part of the market it
would have a clear field.

Later   that  year  the  American  Motors  Gremlin  appeared:   It  was  an
odd-looking little car with styling charitable described as "controversial"
which  was a nicer word than "ugly".  The car's stylist defended its looks,
claiming  that  only  an  unconventional design would have garnered the car
enough  attention to bring in the customers.  That may or may not have been
true,  but  for  whatever reason, the little car sold well enough to prompt
two  of  the  Big  Three  to respond with designs of there own later in the
year.

GMs  offering  was  the  Chevrolet Vega:  while Ford brought another of Lee
Lacocca`s designs, the ill stared Pinto.  Chrysler ignored the trend toward
smaller  cars and unwisely offered no subcompact for several years to come.
Either  because  the  new  subcompacts  were pushed through production in a
hurry  or  because  the  companies  did  not feel that the subcompacts were
worthy  of  heavy  investments,  neither  car  was  very good.  The Pinto's
disastrous  safety  flaws  lead  to  multimillion  dollar  lawsuits and bad
publicity  for  Ford,  while  the  Vega's  problems included body rust, oil
leaks, rough engines and cylinder head warping.

Long Lines at the Pumps

It was unfortunate for the Big Three that they had not put more effort into
designing well made subcompact cars, because the first major oil crisis was
just around the corner.  It would usher in the age of fuel conservation and
engine economy, and with the Big Three woefully unprepared for bthe change,
the door was opened for the Japanese carmakers.

When  gasoline  engines were first made in quantity, America`s domestic oil
supply  was  more  than  sufficient  to  provide  for  the country's needs.
Originally, the only use for petroleum was to make kerosene lamps, and with
the  advent of the electric light even that use was declining.  The arrival
of  the  gasoline  engine gave the Petroleum industry a whole new reason to
exist.   Today,  gasoline  comprises  nearly  a  third  of  the  total  oil
consumption of the world.

As  the  car  became  more  and  more  common  in  America, use of gasoline
naturally  increased  past  the  point  where  domestic  oil reserves could
provide enough fuel for everyone.  This point was reached and passed in the
1950s,  but  hardly  anyone  noticed because the discovery of new large oil
fields  in  the  deserts of Saudi Arabia and other middle Eastern countries
ensured  that  fuel  would  continue  to  be plentiful.  American consumers
failed  to  realize, however, that when oil became a precious commodity, it
became  a  source  of  power  -  power which had now passed out of American
hands.

The hard lesson was driven home in 1973 with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur
War  between  Israel  and her Arabic neighbors.  Oil stopped flowing to the
United  States and to most of Europe as well not because the wells had gone
dry  but  because  the  Arab  nations  had  decided  not  to sell it to the
countries  that  were  supporting  their  enemy,  Israel.   Gasoline prices
tripled  over  a  few months and people stood in line for hours to get fuel
for  their  cars.   Some  European  nations,  with  no domestic oil supply,
resorted  to  banning driving entirely on Sundays.  It was a rude awakening
for  American  gasoline  consumers,  abruptly forced to become aware of how
drastic  their  fuel needs had become and how great their dependence was on
foreign powers to supply it.

Large  car  sales  went into an immediate downturn with the worst hit being
the  Large sized, medium priced cars such as Ford`s Mercury.  An economical
car   suddenly   seemed   a   much  better  choice  than  a  powerful  one.
Unfortunately,  the  American  auto industry wasn`t building any dependable
fuel-efficient  cars,  nor was it prepared to do so in the near future.  In
response  to  the  crisis,  the Big Three to start making plans to downsize
their  product,  but  it would be several years before the changes would be
reflected in the creation of new, smaller cars.

The  second oil crisis hit just five years later in 1978, brought on by the
struggle  to  overthrow the American supported Shah of Iran.  Prices, which
never  came  down  after the first crisis, tripled yet again.  Then in 1980
Iran  and  Iraq,  both  major  oil  producers, went to war with each other,
stopping  oil production from both countries and guaranteeing that the high
gasoline  prices would continue for the immediate future.  For the American
auto industry, there would be no turning back.  The day of the gas guzzling
car was well and truly over.

The Rise of Japan

The entry of Japan into the auto industry started early, but stumbled badly
several  times  before  finally  achieving  success.  Japan`s first car was
built  in  1902,  an  experimental model only that used an American engine.
Five  years  later a car was built for production but only twelve were made
before  the company collapsed.  By the early 1920s there were many tiny car
manufacturers in Japan, none of them supccessful.

The first automobile company in Japan to actually turn a profit was founded
in  1926,  its product being an experimental car built by Kwaishinsha Motor
Works.  The initials of the founders were combined to created the company`s
original  name, DAT.  Five years later DAT bought out a car named "Datson",
meaning,  literally "son of DAT" and in the year after the name was changed
again  to  Datsun to honor the rising sun emblem of the country's flag.  In
1934  DAT  joined with the new Nissan company to form today's Nissan Datsun
corporation.

The only other pre WWII car manufacturer in Japan was Toyota which started,
improbably  enough,  as  a  textile  manufacturer.   Its first offering was
brought  out  in  1935.   The  car looked like a cross between a Ford and a
Chrysler Airflow and by the standards of the West was a poor vehicle

It  was  not  until  the second World War that Japan's auto industry really
took  off.   The  vast  industrial  and  technological expansion that Japan
undertook in order to fight WWII formed the basis of its post war industry.
Production was very slow at first; only 215 Toyotas were built between 1947
and  1952.   But  during  the 1950s Japanese engineers traveled to the U.S.
and  began  to  study  American  production  methods,  and  in  1953 Toyota
production   had  jumped  to  16,500.   Financing  for  Japan`s  industrial
capitalization, expansion and modernization were provided by its government
and by low cost loans from the World Bank.

Once  they  had  learned  the basics of modern mass production methods, the
Japanese engineers went on to do what America's companies had failed to do:
improve  on  them  as an example, Toyotas production manager, Taiichi Ohno,
developed  stamping  machines  that could be easily changed to make several
different  parts from a single machine.  This saved on capital, since fewer
machines  were  needed and eliminated wasteful and inefficient stockpiling.
Conversion  of one of Ohnos machines could be done in a few minutes instead
of  the  three  hours  or  more it could take to convert a standard Detroit
model.

Early  Japanese  marketing  efforts  were  restricted to home, for only one
person  in  ten  in Japan had a car in the 1960s, compared to one in two in
the  U.S., one in five in West Germany, and one in six in Britian.  Even as
late  as  1967  only  11% of Japan`s car production was exported During the
1960s  the  Japanese  car  industry expanded and developed as new companies
were founded and older companies merged.  Nissan took over Prince Motors of
Tokyo,  Toyota  absorbed  Daihatsu,  and the huge Mitsubishi company joined
forces  with  Isuzu  Motors.   Honda, ruler of the motorcycle market, began
making  cars  in  1962.   In  1968  Toyo  Kogyo,  which  began  as  a  cork
manufacturer  began  producing  the  Mazda  marque, some with Wankel rotary
engines.

The Japanese automobile got off to a shaky start in the United States.  The
first  Toyotas  reached  California in 1957 against the wishes of the car`s
designer who felt (rightly) that the vehicle was not ready to challenge the
U.S  market.   By  American  standards  of  the day, the early Toyotas were
poorly  made  , with engines so underpowered that they could not accelerate
fast enough to get on a freeway safely.  Toyota dealerships were considered
only by the most desperate car dealers.

The  turning point came in 1973, when Honda brought its subcompact Civic to
the  United  States.   It  was  the  right car at the right time, and sales
soared.   Other  Japanese  automakers  soon  followed.   American consumers
discovered that Japanese imports cost the same (or less than) American made
subcompacts,  but  were  more  durable, ran better, and were much more fuel
efficient Compared to the Vega and the Pinto, they seemed like wonder cars.
Word  spread quickly among buyers and within a very few years the Big Three
realized  they  had  a  serious problem on their hands as sales of American
cars  went  into  a  steady  decline.   By 1980 Japan had passed the United
States in overall production and in 1987 imports accounted for 31.3% of all
automobiles sold in America.

THE POPULAR CAR TODAY : 1980 - PRESENT

Since the end of World War II the car industry has taken on an increasingly
global  character.   Cars  are  imported  and  exported  from  every  major
industrialized country, and multinational ventures are becoming more common
every year.  Foreign automakers have established links with U.S.  firms and
all  major  Japanese manufacturers have opened plants on U.S.  soil.  A car
today may be owned by a company in one country, be designed by a company in
a second, be assembled in a third, and contain parts originating in five or
ten  more.   The  heaviest  concentrations of car owners are found in North
America,  Western  Europe,  Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, all of which
have ratios of one car for every 2 - 4 people.  China, by contrast, has one
per 2,000 people.

Countries  with  automotive  industries  include  Japan, the United States,
Germany,  Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, and regions of the former U.S.S.R.
America has the Big Three of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.  Japan has
six  major firms Toyota, Nissan/Datsun, Honda, Mazda, Isuzu and Suzuki.  In
Germany,  Volkswagen  leads by a large margin, followed by Opel (GMs German
branch),  Ford,  Daimler-Benz  (with Mercedes), and the Bayernische Motoren
Werks (BMW).  France has Renault, Citroen/Peugeot, and Simca, while Italy's
only  major  popular  car manufacturer is Fiat.  Volvo and Saab are made in
Sweden,  and South Korea, a very recent entry into the field, is doing well
with Hyundai.

The  United Slates produced two thirds of all the world`s cars in 1950.  By
1990  that  fraction had dropped to one-fifth, although the total number of
cars built was about equal to that of 1950.  For most of the early years of
the auto industry, Britain held the second place spot behind the U.S.  This
lasted  until  Germany,  building on the strength of the Volkswagen, seized
the  position  in  the  1960s.   In the 1970s Japan surged past Germany and
shortly thereafter the U.S.  itself to take the lead.

Tough Times for Detroit

One  quarter  of  the  cars sold in the United States were made in Japan by
1980, an astonishing turnaround from just ten years before.  The success of
the  Japanese  import can be attributed to two simple factors:  first, they
had  the right car at the right time to take advantage of a lamentable lack
of foresight on the part of American automakers, and second, they were able
to  refine the mass production process in order to combine high output with
high quality control.

The  U.S.  government, alarmed by this threat to a major national industry,
in  1981  convinced  Japan to impose restrictions on its automakers to give
American car companys time to retool and modernize their factories.  In the
following  year the United Auto Workers revealed the growing desperation in
the  industry  when they made major concessions to manufacturers, hoping to
help  get  the  American  auto industry back on its feet.  Between 1978 and
1984  the Big Three spent a total of about $69 billion throughout the world
in  an  attempt  to  become  competative,  putting  the  money into product
redesign and plant modernization.

Since 1984 sales of American cars have been slowly rising, although it will
take  them  quite  a  while  to regain lost ground, if indeed they ever do.
American  carmakers  recovered  from earlier difficulties such as the Great
Depression,  given  time,  but  in  those  cases the slump was a world wide
phenomenon affecting carmakers everywhere in roughly the same way.  Even in
the  depths  of the Depression, the American auto industry still turned out
more  than twice as many cars as its nearest rival.  This latest decline is
specific  to the United States, a loss in global market share rather than a
general depression of sales, and as such it will be harder to recover from.

No  one in the American car industry is giving up, however Lee Lacocca said
in  1988,  "Americans  are  fat and happy" but that doesn`t mean America is
finished.   When  it gets tough, they will straighten out".  His confidence
may  or may not be justified.  The matter is further clouded by the growing
international  nature  of  the  industry.   In  recent  years,  cooperative
marketing  deals  and  production  mergers  between  American companies and
carmakers  from  other  nations  have  blurred  the line between import and
domestic  vehicles  to  the  point where it is difficult to say where a car
actually  comes  from.   All three major U.S.  carmakers have international
plants   and   have   sub-assemblies  and  parts  manufactured  by  foreign
affiliates.   Japan  and South Korea have been the major partners, although
Europe and South America are in the process of joining them.

As  of  1970  an American make of car was truly American made, designed and
built  by  Americans  with all parts manufactured in the United States.  In
contrast,  in  1990  a  Ford  Festiva  was  a  Korean built Mazda design, a
Chevrolet  Turbo  Sprint was a Japanese built Suzuki, and a Pontiac Le Mans
was  a German designed Opel Kadett built in Korea!  One of the main reasons
why foreign built cars are being sold as American is that the enormous cost
of  retooling  a  factory  can  be  avoided if an already-developed foreign
design  is used.  In 1990, cars of the Ford-Lincoln Mercury group came from
Korea, Mexico, Canada, Austria, and German as well as the U.S..  As of 1970
there  were  no  foreign companies building cars on American soil, while in
1989 and 1990 the best selling American built car was the Honda Accord.  In
1991  a Dodge Stealth was selected as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500
auto  race,  until it was discovered that most of the car was built outside
of  the  United  States.   A public outcry prompted a change to a Dodge V10
Viper.

The  decline  of  the  American  auto  industry has brought about a similar
decline  in Detroit; once the fourth largest city in America, it dropped to
seventh as job prospects, dwindled in the 1980s.  Unless American carmakers
can accomplish the difficult task of regaining consumer confidence in their
cars.   Detroit`s  decline  seems  likely to continue.  In America, imports
used  to  be  purchased  by  people who either fancied "exotic" cars or who
wanted one as a status symbol.  Today, it is Henry Ford`s "average man" who
buys  a  Japanese import - ordinary people in lean economic times trying to
save money on repair and running costs and maintain trade in values.  There
has  been  a  surge  in  new car designs and ideas emerging from Detroit in
recent  years  as the city strives to return to producing not only the most
cars,  but  also  the best cars.  Only time will tell if they will succeed.
If  they  do  not,  the  next  Detroit  will be a city in Japan or Germany.
Regardless,   the   popular   car  will  undoubtedly  continue  to  be  the
transportation of choice in modern nations for decades to come.

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