AUTOS: First Round to the Foreigners

U.S. car sales have picked up strong momentum now that General Motors has restocked dealer showrooms after its 67-day strike last fall. G.M. Chairman James Roche's December prediction of 1971 volume totaling a near-record 9.5 million cars or more may easily be fulfilled. But the sales figures make even better reading for Japanese and West German automakers than for their American rivals. Detroit's car manufacturers are quietly burying their hopes that 1971 will be the year in which the imported-car invasion of the U.S. market is decisively repelled.

Those hopes flared brightly...

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