The Auto Industry during WWII and After
The auto-industry turned it's attention to Europe in 1942. All domestic auto production in America ground to a halt with efforts focused on arming the 11% of American soldiers, as well as Allied forces with massive amounts of military equipment produced by men and women on the home front.
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| P-38 Bomber-inspired lines
General Motor's designer Harley Earl, top in his field in his day, changed the face of Cadillac when he drew inspiration from his tour of Lockheed's hanger and the fighter jet, the P-39 he saw while there. The jet's twin engines, booms and tails gave Earl the idea to incorporate this look into the Cadillac and perhaps draw the American public to buy into the glamour surrounding fighter pilots. The P-38 remained one of the only U.S. made military aircraft to stay in production throughout the war.
Earl's design stayed popular into the early 50's when the "Dagmar" twin spinners evolved into the huge, sweeping tail fins that became icons of the era.
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| Bomber-inspired designs
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With all that effort going into the war, civilian stock of autos was seriously going down. Nearly half of the 25 million registered vehicles driving on American roads were over ten years old.
In 1942 the Volkswagen Bug appears on the market for the first time. But in 1944, under threat of Allied bombing, the German car company halts production.
In fact, by February 1942 all of the major America auto makers were shut down and all existing stock of automobiles were managed by the government for the war effort, rationed out for civil and military use. No new automobiles were produced in 1943 or 1944 but about 800 were assembled during those years from existing parts. During this freeze, automakers became exclusively defense contractors.
The war department o.k.ed the production of some light and heavy cars for staff from Chevy, Ford, Plymouth, and Packard and Buick respectively.
In an interesting bit of local lore, the Willow Run Plant in Ypsilanti, MI Ford churned out parts for the B-24 Liberator long-range bomber every 6.3 seconds. Each bomber had 1, 555,000 parts in all!!
The Chrysler company made fuse bomb noses, shells, cartridge cases, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, Ford build aircraft for the British government and General Motors built over $12 billion dollars worth of war materials.
Auto production resumed in 1945, business as usual, and the models were built for the 1946 year. Most of the designs were just repeats of 1942 designs with GM's first real post war designs not coming out until 1949.
