Spring Surge

It was the cheeriest spring in years in Detroit, with the loudest notes of optimism coming from Ford. The company last week boosted its quarterly dividend from 40-c- to the 60-c- quarterly rate it was paying up until last fall; its first-quarter earnings will be more than $2.25 a share v. 42-c- last year. Ford's Vice President James Wright flatly predicted a 6,000,000-car year--the most optimistic projection this year. His optimism was based on the rising production of the industry (1,683,326 autos to date compared to 1,290,587 last year) and a big bulge at Ford. Preliminary sales figures for March showed that Ford, which had lagged slightly behind Chevrolet in February, had nudged it out of first place in March, 130,800 to Chevy's 130,600. With sales rising, Ford upped its production quota for the second quarter in its Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln Division by more than 30%. Pontiac stepped into third place in March with 36,640 cars, followed by Oldsmobile with 34,560, Plymouth with 32,700, and Rambler with 29,900.

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