IN THE FOURTH PART OF OUR HISTORICAL SERIES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CANADA’S AUTOMOTIVE RETAIL INDUSTRY, WE LOOK AT THE WAR YEARS OF THE 1940S
Building tanks at a General Motors plant.
The Great Depression of the 1930s had created some of the worst times many people had seen, and had a huge impact on the auto industry.
In the wake of crashing sales, many smaller carmakers closed their doors, and so did many dealers But the 1940s brought a new and different hardship: the war in Europe.
Canada’s ties to the U.K. brought it into the conflict when Britain declared war in September 1939. The major auto industry upheaval would come with the United States’ entry into the fray following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, but Canadian dealers were already under fire. The federal government was scrutinizing numerous industries to weed out any potential war profiteering.
It noticed that many dealers privately financing their customers tacked a premium onto each contract, which helped cover their losses if the odd one went sour. When Ottawa demanded the premium be discontinued, dealers banded together to fight for it. They ultimately won, and the effort led to the formation of the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA).
While some of Canada’s industries were already making military supplies for Britain by 1939, the war effort didn’t really gather serious momentum until the Americans joined the fight.
Chevrolet put out a poster showing its war production.
Photo courtesy of general motors
The U.S. government earmarked $52 billion for the war effort, including orders for 60,000 planes and 45,000 tanks. The obvious suppliers were automakers, already set up for mass production, and President Roosevelt put a halt to auto production so the factories could be switched over. The last civilian vehicle built in the U.S. was a Ford that came off the line on February 10, 1942.
Needless to say, when one’s business consists of selling new vehicles, having the supply cut off is disastrous. Sales had already slowed after the Canadian government implemented a tax on new vehicles in the hope that higher prices would deter buyers and make the existing supply last longer, and as the war progressed, new car sales were strictly limited to essential workers such as doctors or emergency personnel. Dealers had to find new revenue streams if they were going to stay afloat.
Fearful they’d be left with nothing to sell, dealers started buying as many used cars as they could. Even these were regulated, their sale limited to one per year to each customer and their prices capped, although they regularly changed hands for more.
At the auto factories, each manufacturer received numerous government contracts for specific items. These included aircraft engines and gun barrels made by Chrysler; bombers and armoured personnel carriers at Ford; gun mounts and torpedo tubes at Hudson; machine guns and tanks at General Motors; military trucks at Studebaker; and marine engines at Packard.
A government tender for a tough but manoeuvrable military vehicle drew a winning design from a mini-car manufacturer named American Bantam. Also built by Willys and Ford, it would become known as the Jeep.
The war cut off supplies of raw rubber from overseas, and tires very quickly became one of the most sought-after items on the black market. Drivers were restricted to five tires, and those who owned premium models with the dual-spare styling popular in the 1930s had to relinquish one of those spare tires. If a tire went flat beyond repair, it had to be turned in before a new one could be purchased.
Governments on both sides of the border asked citizens to voluntarily limit their driving. This wasn’t to save gasoline, but to make tires last longer.
When that didn’t work, rationing went into effect, along with lower speed limits and bans on pleasure driving. Restrictions were set on how much fuel each person could buy, and ration stickers and coupons were handed out depending on one’s profession: essential workers were entitled to buy more fuel than casual drivers were. Naturally, these coupons also ended up as hot items on the black market.
The factories needed huge amounts of raw materials for war production, and there was little left for other products. Some essential vehicle replacement parts were still being produced, but their sale was limited, and dealers had to return the old ones after a repair before they could restock their parts counter.
Ford builds an amoured tanker at its Twin Cities plant in 1942.
Photo courtesy of ford
But non-essential accessories stocked before the war were fair game. Many dealers went through their records to check which cars had been delivered without add-ons such as clocks or radios, and contacted these customers to see if they’d like to buy them.
Even so, just getting mechanics who could install them was becoming an issue for dealers, as it was for many other companies looking for employees. With 1.1 million Canadians serving in the war, many dealerships remained understaffed as their employees went overseas and few remained behind to fill their jobs.
When the war ended, so did war production. Factories started returning to civilian vehicles in 1945.
The average car was now nine years old. There had been a “gentlemen’s agreement” among automakers not to work on styling during the war to avoid unfair advantages, and until 1949, most cars were just 1942 designs with trim changes. It should have been a dealer’s dream, given the pent-up demand for new cars and customers’ willingness to pay whatever it took to get one, but the factories couldn’t turn them out quickly enough.
For some automakers, supply didn’t meet demand until the early 1950s, especially when some were hit with lengthy strikes from workers who feared for their job security when soldiers began returning home.
Wartime production did have a lasting effect on the industry, though, as new materials and technologies developed or improved for the military trickled down to vehicles.
These included such things as power steering, synthetic rubber, new plastics, and automatic transmissions. Such innovations would gain even more prominence as the auto industry regained its footing and headed confidently into the initial prosperity of the decade that would become known as the “Fabulous Fifties.”
