Business & Finance: Production for Use

The knell of the automobile (see p. 61) brought glad tidings to one little industry, anyway. For the first time the twelve U.S. bicycle manufacturers (5,000 employes) found themselves making a potentially useful, rather than a predominantly sporting product.*

Before OPM last week, bike makers argued that the 40 lb. of steel in a bicycle could in many situations replace a 2,900-lb. Chevrolet. The British use bicycles mostly to go to work. Most U.S. bicycles (around 10,000,000) are owned for sport by boys and girls, but not all. As evidence of their usefulness, the manufacturers cited Philadelphia's bike-riding newsboys, who sold $103,000 worth of defense stamps one week, $130,000 worth in another.

Impressed with bicycling's possibilities in a new-earless U.S., OPM promised the industry a limited allocation of steel and rubber. The manufacturers in turn agreed that they could produce 1,000,000 bicycles in 1942 (1941 output: 1,800,000) and save 30,000 tons of steel. Method: make two models (male & female) instead of 35; limit them to 34 lb. (present average: 49 lb.); throw out spotlights, battery tanks, other gadgets.