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HORSEPOWER RACE will get hotter in 1958. Chevrolet is building new eight-cylinder engine at Tonawanda, N.Y. plant, will make it about 3 in. to 4 in. lower, 6 in. longer and much more powerful than basic 162-h.p. V-8 on 1957 models. Next year's Chevy chassis will also be lower (though not so ground-hugging as 1957 Plymouth), along with Pontiac will get complete styling overhaul from General Motors.

MEAT-PRICE RISE is coming because 1957 production will drop 2% to 3% below last year's record 28 billion Ibs. Southwest drought has cut into cattle supply and hog farmers are marketing fewer porkers to avoid last year's glut. Chicago wholesale prices: beef, 7% to 16% higher than this time last year; pork, up 37% ; lamb, up 15% to 19%.

ANTIQUES ON CREDIT will be sold by Manhattan's French & Co. With stock of $10 million in objets d'art to sell in next six weeks before moving into its newly acquired $1,400,000 Parke-Bernet building, French will let buyers put 25% down, pay rest at 5% interest over twelve to 36 months in deal financed by First National City Bank of New York.

AIR-FARE BOOST of 5% will go into effect on all North Atlantic flights beginning May 1, if U.S. and West European governments approve. Transatlantic lines want fare increase to offset salary hikes, higher fuel costs due to Suez crisis.

NEW LACROSSE MISSILE, U.S. Army's surface-to-surface bird designed to carry a nuclear or conventional warhead about ten miles for close ground support, is going into large-scale production by Baltimore's Glenn L. Martin. Missile and truck launcher can be airdropped to troops, will probably be delivered to Army units by summer.

HUGE MINERAL DEPOSITS have been uncovered in U.S.S.R. and West Germany. Russia claims discovery of "tens of billions of tons of iron ore" near Western Siberia's River Ob, if true, a richer field than world's biggest known iron deposits near Lake Superior. In Germany, Krupp has found major coal seam, will soon start country's first big coal-mining project since 1939, aims to mine 2,000,000 tons a year eventually.

THREE-WAY MERGER will put Weyerhaeuser Timber Co., biggest U.S. lumber producer (but second to diversified Crown-Zellerbach in overall business) into the finished-container field for first time. In face of sagging U.S. lumber sales, Weyerhaeuser will absorb Chicago's Eddy Paper Corp. and New Jersey's Kieckhefer Container Co. in $200 million stock swap, emerge as fully integrated lumber-pulp-container producer, with annual earnings of about $65 million.

ITALIAN-IRANIAN OIL pact will make Italy's state-owned ENI company a major operator in Middle East, give it drilling rights in Iran's rich new fields (potential production: 35 million bbl. a year) at Qum. Combine of U.S., British, Dutch and French companies already operating in Iran was refused permission to exploit Qum, fears that terms of deal giving Iran 70% to 75% share of profits will upset traditional fifty-fifty split.

STEEL PRICES will go up again at midyear, when steelworkers get their annual raise under three-year contract. Estimates are for boost of $5 to $6 a ton; increase will be less if production stays low (currently 92% of capacity), more if auto-buying picks up sharply later in spring.

EXOTIC-FUEL DEAL will put Gulf Oil Corp. into new field of high-energy jet and missile fuels. Gulf is buying 25% of Gallery Chemical Co., developers of promising "HiCal" boron fuel (TIME, March 18), will start joint research and production program.

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