HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



with which to malve either automobile bodies in their entirety, or 

 for the panel and general outside covering. This resulted in sev- 

 eral new types of automobile bodies being produced during the 

 last few years. Certain makers still hold to the wooden frame- 

 work with poplar panels; others employ wooden framework with a 

 thin steel covering; others use a wooden framework with cast 

 aluminum covering; and still others employ a steel frame with 

 thin sheet steel covering. 



The relative cost of a wood frame, poplar covered automobile 

 body, with poplar panel stock selling at a hundred dollars a thou- 

 sand feet, and the cost of a wood frame, sheet steel covered auto- 

 mobile body is approximately the same. The cost of a steel frame, 

 steel covered automobile body is more; and the cost of a wood 

 frame, aluminum covered body is still much higher. 



The cost of the wood panel stock in automobile body construi-- 

 tion, and the uncertainty of future supply of this material, how- 

 ever, are not the chief factors that are inducing automobile makers 

 to attempt to palm off on the public substitute materials in auto- 

 mobile bodies. Automobile manufacturers of the country have 

 worked very fast to "keep up with the procession." A lot of 

 talent as well as millions of dollars have been invested in auto- 

 mobile making enterprises, by reason of the alluring profits that 

 were made, or supposedly made, by a good many factories that 

 were practically pioneers in making these vehicles in large 

 quantities. 



The automobile business has gotten down to a point where single 

 factories group the various items going to make up an automobile 

 and turn out cars at the rate of a hundred or more a day. They 

 all seek what Ihey are pleased to call efficiency. Buyers of the 

 various materials that go to make up automobiles heavily penalize 

 makers of the various parts if they do not deliver their goods in 

 schedule quantities and on schedule time. There is no business 

 in the United States that is done on stich a system of fast time 

 work as automobile making. In some lines of trade manufac- 

 turers will say, "If I don't get the order today I will tomorrow," 

 but in the automobile business no man, if he fails to ' ' nail ' ' an 

 order and fulfill it on the minute, is sure that he will ever get it. 

 Hence, perhaps, this rush. 



It is alleged by good authorities that the automobile business 

 has been so systematized and reorganized during the last year or 

 two that the shop cost rarely exceeds one-half of the price that 

 the buyer pays for his automobile, and what is at present worry- 

 ing the industry in its attempt to deliver a first-class pleasure 

 and business automobile at a profit and at a logical price, is its 

 extravagant sales cost system, which involves high rentals at dis- 

 tributing points, fancy priced sales managers and salesmen, and 

 the most extravagant advertising expenditures that have ever 

 been made in the history of any industry. It is alleged bj' com- 

 petent authorities that the automobile business is_gi'adually get- 

 ting down to a ten per cent basis of profit, and that the former 

 fancy dividends, based on making thousands of cars when the 

 demand was in excess of the supply, is at an end. 



This explanation of the situation of the automobile business 

 necessarily is made to illustrate the real reason why automobile 

 manufacturers are palming off on their customers bodies covered 

 with the material that was originally intended for the making of 

 stove pipes, in lieu of the substantial, efficient poplar bodies that 

 experience has demonstrated would stand up under severe usage 

 for more than a quarter of a century. The basis for this action 

 is entirely by reason of what the automobile maker calls "effi- 

 ciency, ' ' which some authorities might regard as efficiency degener- 

 ated to speed lunacy. It requires a much longer time to season, 

 steam, bend, dry and build a wooden automobile body than it 

 does a "tin" covered eontrajition, which means placing orders 

 more than a year in advance to secure the necessary quantity and 

 quality of lumber, but beyond this a stovepipe covered automobile 

 body can be painted, varnished and turned out of the factory 

 inside of six days, when it requires six weeks to properly finish 

 a wooden body. 



Again, automobile manufacturers discovered, in tlio luirry-uii 



process demaudcd by them in making bodies, that, in a lot of a 

 thousand, they would find five to ten per cent of the panels were 

 made from improperly cured lumber, that would develop checks 

 or other defects, and these had to be returned to the body maker 

 for repairs, and then had to be refinished in their own plants. 

 This was an item of "efficiency" not to be overlooked by the 

 automobile maker, even if he did foist upon the public an inferior 

 automobile body. 



Hardwood Record has interviewed scores of automobile manu- 

 facturers and body makers who employ all the types of bodies 

 enumerated, and its representatives have spent days in body- 

 making plants in various parts of the country to fully analyze 

 the difference in the merits of the various types. The result of 

 this investigation will be recited in detail in succeeding articles, 

 but it may be stated definitely that a metal body of any type 

 hasn't a tithe of the quality and value of a wooden one. 



The merits of the full wooden type of construction may be 

 recited as having lasting qualities of both the body itself and its 

 finish, of well toward ten times as great as a sheet steel body, and 

 possesses intrinsic merits many times above the cast aluminum 

 bodies. In the event of accident a wooden body is easily re- 

 paired and restored to its original appearance and strength, while 

 a wrecked steel-covered body is a total loss. The finish on a wood 

 body, with the aid of a coat of varnish every two or three years, 

 will outlast the best type of machine, while no automobile maker 

 will presume to gaiarantee the finish of a steel automobile body 

 for three years. In fact, in many cases it is difficult to make 

 delivery on steel body work before the paint begins to disin- 

 tegrate and flake. The rusting of a steel body, where the sheets 

 are bent at angles, also militates against its value very seriously; 

 and when a loose joint develops it rattles and makes the machine 

 noisy. The steel body is not as comfortable as a wooden one, 

 because of its non-resistance of heat or cold. It absorbs the heat 

 rays in hot weather, and is a .chilly vehicle in the winter-time. 

 A wooden body will resist ordinary pointed pressure and abrasion 

 involved in a minor accident, where a steel body is dented, bent, 

 or rent. Bepairs on wood bodies in such cases are very cheap, 

 while it is impossible to eradicate dents or abrasions, or make a 

 decent repair job on a hole in a steel body. In the ease of a dent 

 or abrasion in an aluminum body, it is possible by sending a machine 

 back to the factory, and through the sacrifice of the finish over a 

 large area, to hammer out ordinary dents, but bad damage involves 

 very serious cost for repairs. 



Any automobile with a steel body that has been in service thirty 

 days or more can be spotted instantly by the dents in the thin 

 metal, and evidences of rust showing at bends and joints, and often 

 the paint is scaled in spots. Rusted steel can be repainted, but con- 

 tinued rusting can not be remedied until the metal is entirely dis- 

 integrated. An aluminum body can also be discovered by the dents 

 in it? surface after short use, and corrosion and loosening of the 

 jjiiint is nearly as manifest. 



The only logical reason that an automobile manufacturer can 

 present for supplying metal bodies in lieu of wooden ones, is his 

 fear of not being able to secure ample supplies of panel stock. 

 When it is known that the requirements for panel stock for a 

 total of 200,000 automobiles, on the average amounts to only fifty 

 feet to the vehicle, or a total of about ten million feet of panel 

 stock annually, it will not be a difficult matter to enter into a 

 contract with enough responsible poplar manufacturers to secure 

 guaranteed delivery of this quantity of panel and No. 1 poplar 

 to take care of this requirement for a period of ten and possibly 

 twenty years. 



The metal bodies that are being "put over" onto buyers today 

 are practically just as fraudulent in character as is the full steel 

 car equipment. There is no good reason why buyers of automobiles 

 should not have wooden bodies on their vehicles — all they have 

 to do is to refuse to buy a "tin" body, and automobile producers 

 will be mighty quick to accede to the demand for a wooden body, 

 but for some special type of vehicle they may be obliged to wait 

 fix weeks for delivery. 



