Remember the Dealer

Having had their business taken away from them by OPM's no-new-car order (TIME, Jan. 12), the 44,000 U.S. auto dealers last week were overwhelmed by universal solicitude. From all sides, new business opportunities and promises of help rained on them:

> Detroit's fast-growing Goebel Brewing Co., which seeks more distribution, ran a full-page trade-paper ad inviting the dealers to become beer barons. By using their idle showrooms, storage space, trucks and reputations, dealers were told they could build up profitable beer distributorships. This week Goebel had 30 applicants, was "amazed" by results.

> Joseph Washington Frazer, Willys-Overland Motors president, invited the dealers to become manufacturers. Frazer, swamped with $142,000,000 in war orders (Willys' 1940 sales: $14,557,000), needs and wants subcontractors. So he sent out over 40,000 questionnaires to dealers asking for details on their tools, floor space and manpower. When he gets his answers Frazer will have something no one else has: data on the manufacturing capacities of auto-repair equipment.

> At a special remember-the-dealer House hearing in Washington, tough Leon Henderson promised relief. Under the coming rationing scheme dealers will get full list price, plus up to $75 per car for "handling and delivery." Furthermore, RFC this week announced it had earmarked $100,000,000 for loans to dealers. This will prevent any gouging by banks and finance companies holding dealer notes.

Better still, a few lucky dealers will be selling new cars two years hence--something none had dared hope for. This is because Henderson will freeze at least 130,000 new cars onto a 1943 stockpile. On these cars alone, dealer gross profits plus delivery and warehouse charges (running up to $15 a month) should total over $65,000,000.

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