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Last year Courtesy Motors, which sells regular Fords, the top-selling compact Falcon.* and Renaults. Peugeots and Triumphs, sold 21.000 cars. 9,000 of them new and 12.000 used. Moran seems to shine with so much sincerity and belief that his cars are best ("the most gorgeous car you have ever seen'') that almost every customer feels he is getting the same deal that Moran would give his own brother—even though competitors claim that it is often no better than car buyers can get elsewhere. Moran treats such claims with royal disdain. "The real crux of the matter," he says modestly, "is that there have been dealers who wanted to get rid of Jim Moran because his personality is so unique." Shared Destiny. If Jim Moran is unique in many ways, he is nonetheless inseparable from the problems, hopes and destiny of the nation's 32,000 new-car dealers (another 25.000 sell only used cars). They hold the key to how soon the U.S. economy will turn upward, for in the spring they usually sell nearly 30% of their new cars. This week dealers greeted spring's arrival with a mixture of hope and apprehension. Inventories still hovered around 1,000,000 cars; some dealers still have 1960 models to sell.
But new-car sales in the first ten days of March rose 12% above the same period in February, though still below March of last year. Ford dealers for the first time in 1961 sold more cars than in the same period a year ago, when much of the nation was hit by a severe blizzard. American Motors announced record high Rambler sales for March's first ten days. For the first time in six months, Chrysler increased production plans, intends to turn out 25% more cars in March "due to continued improvement in retail deliveries and dealer orders." Even the used-car market is improving, and prices rose for the fourth consecutive ten-day period.
"If it stays up in March," says Ford Division General Manager Lee lacocca, "come late April I predict a strong automobile market." Economy at Any Cost. To spur the market, Detroit has some bright new offerings. Ford announced another new compact model, the Falcon Futura, nearly identical outwardly with the Falcon except for large hubcaps and three chevrons on the rear fenders, but introducing an opulent interior, with bucket seats, deep-pile carpeting and all-vinyl upholstery.
Bucket seats seem to be the coming thing; first used in compacts by the Corvair Monza, they will soon be added to Ford's Comet, Chrysler's Lancer and the Buick Special. On April 1 Pontiac will introduce a third model of its compact Tempest; it is a sporty two-door, six-passenger coupe one-half inch lower than the other two Tempests. For 1962, General Motors plans a whole rash of new compact convertibles.
Detroit has a new phrase for the mood the U.S. car buyer is now in: the economy-luxury market. This apparent contradiction in terms is the discovery of Detroit's market research, which on past occasions has proved about as trustworthy as the used car that has presumably been driven only to and from church by an old lady.