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Moon-Shooter. Curtice and his ace salesman Bill Hufstader rebuilt the dealer organization, brought out low, medium and high-priced Buicks that could compete in almost any price range. By 1941, when Buick turned out 316,251 cars, they had pushed from eighth place to fourth, crowding out Dodge, Pontiac and Oldsmobile along the way. Once when the late Bill Knudsen saw one of Curtice's sales forecasts, he muttered: "Well, by Got, you can't shoot the moon unless you see it first, you know." Curtice not only made Buick one of G.M.'s most profitable divisions but kept its engineers hopping. (Buick's Dynaflow automatic transmission was the outstanding auto development in 1947.)
The moon Curtice has been trying to shoot recently is Plymouth's No. 3 sales position. Since war's end, Curtice has stepped up Buick's capacity to 500,000 cars a year but he has not been able to get enough steel to run full blast. Nevertheless, he has been treading hard on Plymouth's heels. At this time last year, Plymouth's lead over Buick in new car registrations was 43,130; last week it was only 37,308. As Red Curtice says: "In this business you can't stand still."
*Originally 70. But it is being moved back each year; in 1950 it will stop permanently at 65.