Facts & Figures

Output Down. Labor disputes, shortages of materials and absenteeism due to the heat swelled the total of idle automotive workers to more than 80,000, slowed the industry's production to a weekly total of 79,699 cars and trucks (compared to 97,712 the week before and 108,472 at the postwar peak in March).

Rear-Engined Ballyhoo. On the first day of its New York showing, Preston Tucker's rear-engined, carburetor-less (fuel injection) Tucker '48, once called the Torpedo, drew some 15,000 paying spectators (40-c- for adults, 25-c- for children) to Manhattan's Museum of Science and Industry. After two weeks on the market, Tucker's $20,000,000 stock issue was about 80% subscribed. Designer Tucker, en route to Italy to negotiate a manufacturing tie-in with Isotta-Fraschini, said production would not get under way until January at the earliest. Nevertheless, fascinated by such features as the Cyclops headlight and the luggage compartment in the front, close to 3,000 spectators offered to place orders (tentative price: $1,850).

Winged Finance. The aircraft slump, which forced some manufacturers into sidelines ranging from iceboxes to canoes and coffins, found Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in the automobile finance business. Lockheed's 95%-owned Pacific Finance Corp. of California, now the nation's fifth largest, reported a six months net of $395,546, more than in all of 1946.

Recovery Loan No. 2. The World Bank, making its second loan since it started operations eleven months ago (France borrowed $250 million last spring), advanced $195 million to The Netherlands for "the reconstruction of productive facilities." Payable in 25 years, the loan stipulates not a dollar will be spent for "military purposes" (i.e., in Indonesia). Bank President John J. McCloy also announced that Denmark will soon get $50 million and Luxembourg $12 million.

Million-Dollar Baby. Gimbels reported that Baby Sparkle Plenty, a doll version of one of Chester Gould's comic-strip improbables, was smashing all sales records. Sales reached 15,100 (at $6 per head) in the first ten days, were expected to exceed $1,000,000 in retail value by Christmas. "Simply phenomenal," said the doll's proud parent, the Ideal Novelty & Toy Co., Inc. "It appears that sales of this one doll in the five remaining months of the year will exceed the output of the entire doll industry for any year in the past two decades."

"Made in Japan." The Department of Commerce published the first detailed listing of commodities which will be available to U.S. and other buyers when free trade with Japan resumes next month. The 205 items include 80,000 Ibs. of frozen frog legs, 32,500 squirrel skins, 77,529 harmonicas, 1,300,000 beer bottles.

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