Last week's preludes to the National Automobile Show in Manhattan this week & next:
Howard Earle Coffin (Hudson-Essex consulting engineer) entertained President & Mrs. Coolidge on Sapeloe Island.
John North Willys (Willys-Knight, Stearns-Knighf, Whippet) introduced his daughter Virginia to society with a very large Manhattan ball.
William Crapo Durant (Locomobile, Durant) paid out $30,000 for essays on a plan "for making the 18th (Prohibition) Amendment effective."
Henry Ford (Ford, Lincoln) was quoted as saying, astoundingly: "I am sure they [ancient peoples] had the automobile, the radio, the airplane—everything that we have, or its equivalent, and perhaps many things that we have yet to discover." Mr. Ford did not deny the general supposition that Ford Motor Co. (U. S.) stock in some form would soon be offered to investors, just as Ford Motor Co. Ltd. (British) has been.
Alfred P. Sloan (General Motors) made his first radio talk, to employes.
Charles W. Nash (Nash) with his vice president, Milton H. Pettit, personally handed out $807,000 in Christmas bonus checks to his 12,000 employes.
The New York Automobile Show this year has three innovations, worked out by Alfred Reeves, James S. Marvin and S. A. Miles of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, the show's managers :
1) Expensive cars are grouped together on a carpet floor of the exhibition building. Soft-voiced salesmen, in tuxedos, point out the glories of—
Auburn Jordan Peerless
Black Hawk La Salle Fierce-Arrow
(Stutz) Lincoln Reo
Cadillac Locomobile Stearns-Knight
Franklin Moon Stutz
Gardner Packard
2) Foreign cars were admitted—
Austin (British) Renault (French)
Daimler (British) Vauxhall (British)
Mercedes-Benz (German)
Five years ago an Irish car was shown unsuccessfully.
3) Chevrolet, Chrysler and Hudson-Essex, which have led the market in 1928 sales (Ford does not exhibit) and who therefore had first, second and third choice, respectively, to space at the Show, surrendered their prerogatives to a wise allotment of exhibition room. On the main floor they displayed jointly with—
Buick Kissel Pontia
Chandler Marmon Studebaker
Dodge Nash Whippet
Durant Oakland Willys-Knight
Graham-Paige Oldsmobile
Hupmobile Plymouth
And on another floor with—
Auburn duPont Plymouth
Black Hawk Elcar Reo
Cunningham Erskine Studebaker
De Soto Graham-Paige Stutz
Dodge Marmon
Of the dozen U. S. taxicab-makers, only three entered the Show—
Bradfield Checker Yellow
Bradfield is a new one, made by Bradfield Motors, Inc., Chicago.
Practically every 1929 model motor car has been completely redesigned or considerably improved in its body design. (Fisher made most of the bodies; Briggs,