Business & Finance: H.J.'s Allstate

Sears, Roebuck and Kaiser-Frazer have one thing in common: they have both lost money selling cars. Forty-one years ago, the Sears catalogue offered a two-cylinder car for less than $500, which would whiz along "from one to 25 miles per hour [on] resilient, hard-rubber tires." Sears dropped its auto after losing $21,000 on it in 1912. But Kaiser-Frazer, which has been making cars for six years and lost $13 million last year alone, is not that easily discouraged. Last week K-F made a deal that put Sears back in the auto business and got K-F some of the selling help it...

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