AUTOS: Year of Decision

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"I've seen the competition's cars and I've seen ours," chortled a San Francisco Chrysler dealer last week. "We're headed for a terrific year." Around the U.S., Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler dealers were getting their first 1957 models, and to a man they were wreathed in smiles. For the first time in years, they thought that Chrysler Corp. had a better-than-even chance to cut into the lead of Ford and General Motors right down the line. At a cost of some $300 million for new models, Chrysler was making an all-out effort with its 1957 models to get-back in the thick of the auto race.

In Chrysler's 1957 line, every car is new from grille to tailfins, is lower and sportier-looking. To go with the design changes, Chrysler has bigger engines, a new "Torque-Flite" automatic transmission with three speeds instead of two, a new "Torsion-Aire" suspension system for a smoother ride and better cornering.

¶Plymouth has a 48-h.p. boost, to 235 h.p., in the big "Fury" V-8 engine, a 3-in.-longer wheel base (118 in.), and is so low that one dealer cracked: "If the price is as low as the car, we can't lose."

¶Dodge has 80-h.p. boost, to 310 h.p., on its biggest "Red Ram" V-8 engine, and a longer (122-in. wheel base), lower (57 in.) body.

¶DeSoto has a 40-h.p. boost, to 290 h.p., brand-new styling, and a third, lower-priced model called the Firesweep, in order to compete better against Mercury, medium-priced Oldsmobile and Buick.

¶Chrysler, which along with the company's highest-priced Imperial line, goes up 45 h.p., to a top 325 h.p., has another 31 in. chopped off the height (down to 57 in.) but no change from last year's 126-in. wheel base. Like DeSoto, Chrysler will add a third line, the Saratoga, which will fit in between its Windsor and high-priced New Yorker lines as competition for the big Buicks and Oldsmobiles.

"Grow or Die." How well the new cars go over may well determine the company's whole future. No one knows better than President L. L. ("Tex") Colbert the one inviolate axiom of the auto industry: Grow or die. So far, Chrysler has slowly been weakening. After the poor 1954 model, which dropped Chrysler's share of the market; to a bare 12.9%, a succession of new designs and higher-powered cars in 1955 and 1956 have only won back a 16.5% share of the market. But in 1957, Chrysler will be loaded for bear. Cautiously, Colbert himself says only that "our sales targets have been projected on the basis of an expected steadily increasing demand for our products." But Chrysler's brass clearly expects at least a 20% slice in 1957.

With its advanced styling and scheduled $1 billion expansion program, the company thinks it has solved its product and plant problems. Though Chrysler has not released prices yet, it hints broadly that they will be more competitive in 1957, especially Plymouth, which will probably average smaller boosts than Ford or Chevrolet (TIME, Oct. 22). The big remaining problem is still Chrysler's dealer organization. Chrysler dealers have been slow to make attractive deals, hesitate to switch over from old-fashioned high markup on a small number of sales to low markup on high volume.