NEW CHRYSLERS with quickie retrimming job will be wheeled out this month to combat sales slump. Windsor, Saratoga and New Yorker models will have splashier trim all around, sweeping chrome strips along side and rear panels, plus mascara-like black paint around headlights for "space age effect."

FILTER-TIP SALES, up 42% last year, puffed cigarette industry to record 409.4 billion smokes in 1957 v. previous 394.1 billion high in 1952. Filters grabbed 40% of total market, should reach 45% this year.

AMERICAN MOTORS, already well along comeback trail, will pick up more speed with Government contract for its light (1,500 Ibs.), jeeplike Mighty Mite, which can hit 60 m.p.h. with aluminum, V4, air-cooled engine. First order: $5.6 million for tooling and 250 vehicles for Marine Corps, but Detroit says much bigger orders are coming.

RUSSIAN TRAVEL BOOM will attract some 4,000 Americans to U.S.S.R. this year (v. 2,500 in 1957), and Russians plan to send first large tourist parties to U.S. American Express will open Moscow office, station first full-time U.S. travel agent there since World War II.

GERMAN FORDS will start rolling into U.S. foreign-car market (now 5% of all sales) next month. Ford will bolster its fast-moving line of English-made cars by bringing in 5,000 sporty "Taunus" models, which get up to 35 miles per gal. Cost: around $2,000.

MOTEL SURGE will lure more note's into $1.5 billion yearly business. Salt Lake City's rich, old (since 1911") Hotel Utah will soon complete West's biggest (154 units), costliest (about $3.5 million) motel within two blocks of hotel. Features: four plush "penthouses," swimming pool, underground auditorium with capacity of 1,500.

MISSILE TURNABOUT by the Army, which previously researched and developed its own tactical missiles, will give Baltimore's Martin Co. job of developing Pershing solid-fuel rocket (range: about 800 miles) to replace liquid-fuel Redstone (range: 200 miles).

$127 MILLION FACE-LIFT will revamp Baltimore's business center. Plan is to rebuild 22 acres over next few years, put up eight office buildings of 11 to 22 stories, a major hotel, a $19 million federal office building, a 3,000-seat theater and TV center, three parks. City government will raise $17.2 million, expects to get rest from private investors.

CONVAIR ORDER for 47 supersonic B58 Hustler bombers, costing upwards of $470 million, is on the way. Hustler program to date: 77 planes.

AFRICA'S BUILDUP is starting to draw big money from private U.S. investors. To finance housing, roads, utilities, Belgian Congo will float $15 million bond issue in U.S. through Dillon, Read & Co., first such Wall Street public offering: bv any African colony since World War II.

MANHATTAN'S ASTOR PLAZA, bogged down for lack of funds, will be rescued bv First National City Bank, third biggest in U.S. Bank will take over lease on Park Avenue site, between 53rd and 54th Streets, where Vincent Astor intended to erect $75 million slab skyscraper (TIME. Oct. 1, 1956). will put up a building for its own use.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.