FEWER MAKERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 372, 5 June 1928, Page 7

FEWER MAKERS

BUT MORE CARS It is interesting: and significant to note the reduction in the number of manufacturers that has gone on steadily in the last few years, as revealed at the American motor shows. A table compiled by Automobile Industries shows that 87 manufacturers exhibited in the New York show in 1922 and only 43 in 1928, which means, not that relatively fewer manufacturers a(re exhibiting, but that there are fewer in the industry as with one exception, all the large-scale producers have been consistently represented in the New York show. Nor does the comparison mean that fewer cars are being produced. The 1922 show followed a year in which 1,452,90? passenger cars were manufactured in the United States, whereas in 1927, the year preceding the 1928 show, 3,066,000 cars were made. Thus 44 manufacturers made more than twice as many cars that year as 87 did in 1921. This tendency toward the concentration of motor-car manufacture in fewer and fewer producers has been marked since 1921. There were 87 exhibitors in the show immediately following that year, 78 the next year, 73 the next, 61 the next, 52 the next, 44 the next, and 43 in 1928. How much longer this will go on is one of the present speculations of the industry.