Business & Finance: Race of Three

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For the 1935 race President Coyle entered two lines of Chevrolets, the Standard and Master De Luxe. The Masters have "knee-action" front wheels, new all-steel "turret" tops by Fisher Bodies, are longer, roomier, more streamlined. The Standards have conventional springs, conventional steel bodies. But while the Masters are priced at last year's levels, the Standards have been cut $10 on almost all models, putting them as much as $25 below Ford's standard line. In the past year Chevrolet sold about 100,000 of the lower-priced Standards, will push them strongly in 1935 as a good transportation value for those who do not wish to pay extra for the latest gadgets.

Plymouth this year eliminated its lower-priced line to concentrate on the longer wheelbase. It abandoned independent front wheel springing but developed a new type of spring steel and, like Ford, moved the motor forward to improve the ride. Bodies are longer, roomier and pleasantly bulbous. Refinements in the motor are claimed to have increased economy 15% to 20%.

Until 1928 when Plymouth was first marketed, Ford and Chevrolet had the low-priced field pretty much to themselves. Under B. Edwin Hutchinson, Plymouth board chairman and Chrysler vice president & treasurer, Plymouth has on at least one occasion pressed Ford hard for second place in the Big Three's race. And even last year Plymouth lost less ground to Ford than did Chevrolet. More notable, the man who has multiplied Plymouth's sales by five is one of the few crack motormen who did not rise from the bench. Mr. Hutchinson is primarily a financial man, having raised the money to keep old Maxwell Motor alive when Walter P. Chrysler was fashioning that company into a personal springboard.

New Force. It is not surprising that Chevrolet could best Mr. Ford selling a six against a four (Model A). Yet Mr. Ford, selling an eight against Plymouth and Chevrolet sixes, has considerable difficulty in even holding his own. Messrs. Coyle and Hutchinson certainly do not reciprocate Mr. Ford's indifference to competition but they are by no means in mortal terror of the Man of Dearborn. What they fear, if anything, is a new force evident in Ford merchandising. And that force is powered by Edsel Bryant Ford, 41, heir-apparent to the last and greatest personal empire of U. S. industry.

Ford advertising and promotion have always been spasmodic, and Ford dealers have usually been treated as a necessary evil. But in the past few years dealers' commissions have been boosted. Ford's advertising appropriation of about $8,000,000 in 1934 is supposed to have been boosted for 1935. Last year Ford sent a big exhibit to the second edition of the Chicago World's Fair and last week Ford sent Edsel to the Show in Manhattan, where he nervously munched cough drops through various salesmeetings. But the most impressive sign of Edsel's growing power is the 1935 Ford, a modern car in comfort and appearance as well as engineering.