Chrysler's Sideshow

The Chrysler Corporation gave the U.S. its first good look last week at its defense effort which is tremendous.

Every August newspapermen are invited to Detroit for a preview of Chrysler's new models (see p. 57). This year the preview was mostly tanks, bomber fuselages, anti-aircraft guns, Army trucks. When, at the end of a six-hour tour of defense production, a Chrysler official sarcastically suggested that the newspapermen might also want to see the new cars, a wag said: "Yeah, we might as well have a look at the by-product."

Knee-deep in its $400,000,000 worth of war orders, Chrysler should be in all the way by February. Then M-3 medium tanks should be rolling off 15 a day (against 5 a day now); then the assembling of Martin B-26 medium bomber fuselages should be started; then Bofors 40-mm. anti-aircraft guns should be in production. Already Chrysler's engineering department and laboratories are working 85% of their time on defense, developing a 2,000 h.p. airplane engine, a 500 h.p. liquid-cooled tank engine; a new airplane landing gear strut, etc. Half the 900 machine tools used to make the Bofors gun are being taken from the automobile assembly lines. Eleven different Chrysler divisions are supplying parts for the bombers. The 250 Army trucks that come off Dodge production lines every day represent better than half the total daily production of Dodge trucks.

Planes. Last October Chrysler leased 600,000 square feet of the old Graham-Paige plant, in anticipation of a bomber parts contract which came through eight months later. Right now this building has nothing to offer but clean floors, a fresh coat of paint, a few piles of aluminum sheeting and some planning boards, but here eventually the 11,500 parts that make up the nose and center fuselage sections of the Martin bomber will be assembled, production-line fashion (there are 2,500 parts in the Plymouth sedan body). Goodyear is making the wings of this ship, Hudson the tail section, all for assembly in Omaha.

Tanks. Obvious pet of Chrysler officials is the Chrysler Tank Arsenal (TIME, Jan. 20). They like to cite statistics on its vastness: five city blocks long and two wide . . . six and a half acres of window panes . . . 9,000 heavy machines, tools and fixtures installed . . . "here, just a year ago, stood a corn field." . . . Last week it was a whirring, clanking hive of millers, cutters, pressers and riveters (see cut). Eighty percent of the machines which Chrysler needs to step up its tank-production rate to 15 per day have already been installed. Meanwhile Chrysler has just received a big order for a new medium tank of later design, and in order to get tanks rolling fast and steadily has gone right ahead with the earlier type while tooling for the new one.