Business: Business in 1958

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European autos, such as Volkswagens, MGs, Renaults and Fiats, buzzed off with 8% of the domestic market, better than double their 1957 record. But the man of the year in autos was American Motors President George Romney, who had staked the fate of his company on the small Rambler and won. As sales soared, he turned American Motors' $11.8 million loss in 1957 into a $26 million 1958 profit, and at year's end sales and profits were still climbing fast.

Some other 1958 symbols of plenty: $1.6 billion for jewelry, $280 million for furs, $20.1 billion on travel and $2.1 billion for that growing U.S. hobby, boating. If his fancy was tickled, the U.S. consumer could even be tempted into buying 30 million hula hoops.

Innovate & Profit. For the businessman with something truly different, new buying patterns promise fabulous profits. The sales magic in planned obsolescence has worn thin; consumers are increasingly wary of "new" models whose only visible changes are reshuffled buttons and knobs, especially if the old models still work. Today's consumer demands something really different, and in 1958, industry responded by spending $10 billion on research and development in the hope of creating a benign circle of economic activity: the exciting demand for new products creates employment, which in turn results in more money for more workers to buy still more goods. "The more we get," says Curtis C. Rogers of the Market Research Corp. of America, "the more we are willing to work to get still more."

The fact that 15,121 trademarks were registered in 1958 was one measure of industry's drive to innovate. Westinghouse is testing an ultrasonic dishwasher that knocks off dirt with sound waves, an electronic hostess cart that can be wheeled to any part of the house, a refrigerating system to make the old box obsolete by providing separate drawers for meat, dairy products, vegetables, each with its own temperature adjustment.

Even arms spending is bringing great benefits to consumers. In 1958 the commercial jet age was born out of the Air Force bombers. In fiscal 1959 the U.S. will spend an increasing amount, as much as $5 billion, on electronic controls and gadgets of all kinds for the new family of missiles and space probes. Out of this vast spending already have come miniature electronic brains and controls for machines, and a whole new family of electric civilian devices. Transistors and other semiconductors are as useful in pocket radios and TV sets as in missiles.

How eagerly the U.S. consumer greets an exciting new product was witnessed by Chicago's Motorola Inc., one of the first to jump into the market for stereophonic phonographs in 1958. The company put on sale a portable stereo set priced at $159.95, hoped to sell 8,000 units by Christmas. Actual total: 72,000 sets. Next year Motorola will spend $12 million on advertising its products, and thinks that stereo, which can run to $5,000 a set, may turn into as big a bonanza as TV.

Luxury & Convenience. No one learned the lessons of innovation better than the nation's butchers, bakers and grocerymen. People tend to think of food as a standard, largely static item. But in 1958's new economy, nearly 50% of the products sold were not available in their present form at the end of World War II. By offering the consumer a constant parade of new ways