Business: Richard Nixon, Car Salesman

Detroit is gratefully naming Richard Nixon the New Car Salesman of the Year. Auto sales were strong even before he froze prices; now they are going through the roof. It is much too early to tell how well the four-week-old 1972 model year will turn out, but it is clearly off to a fast start. "It is our best introductory period in history," says Robert D. Lund, Chevrolet's general sales manager. Adds Ben Bidwell, Lincoln-Mercury general manager: "Our dealers have never seen anything like today's boom."

The authoritative Ward's Automotive Report predicted last week: "Domestic and import new-car dealers can't miss posting a new sales-record year." Indeed, in calendar 1971, the industry expects its first 10 million-car year ever. Dealers should sell about 1,500,000 imported cars and about 8,500,000 domestic models. This compares with sales of 1,278,000 imports and 7,120,000 U.S.-made cars last year, which was slowed by a 67-day strike against General Motors.

No innovative glamour accounts for the recent leap. The 1972 model year started out with little new except strengthened bumpers. What brought most of the spurt was the freeze-produced sales of 1972-model cars at early-1971 prices, as well as the $200 excise tax cut that President Nixon has proposed. If, as expected, Congress approves the cut, dealers will refund the tax to customers. American Motors has in fact been making excise-tax refunds even before Congress acts; the company's sales jumped 50% in September, compared with the same month in 1970. Whether or not the sales surge will continue into 1972 will depend on what happens in Phase II. The big imponderables are whether labor will accept the limits put on its pay increases, whether the dollar-defense measures will hold back the rise of imports and, most important, whether consumer confidence becomes even stronger after November.