Welcome Wagons

The slowest of the Big Three to enter the small-car race made a strong bid last week to catch up in a hurry. Into production went Chrysler Corp.'s compact Valiant station wagon, well ahead of Ford, which will not have a station wagon on the market until next spring, and Corvair, lagging far behind, which will not have one until fall.

Like Chrysler's Valiant sedan, the new model is neat and nimble. It has the same 106.5-in. wheelbase and six-cylinder 101-h.p. canted engine as the Valiant sedan, will come in two-seat and three-seat (six-nine passengers) models. In both versions the seats will fold down to provide 72.3 cu. ft. of cargo space (v. 95.8 cu. ft. for the regular Plymouth wagon). Factory list price: $2,164, or $213 less than the cheapest Plymouth station wagon. Scheduling a minimum 30% of the Valiant production in wagons, Chrysler is drawing a compact bead on the station-wagon boom, which is growing so fast that 19% of the industry's 1959 production was in wagons.

In their first months on the market, the Big Three's compact cars got off to a fast start. Wards Automotive Reports last week announced that compact-car sales for October totaled 86,244 units, or a hefty 16.4% of the overall auto market, compared to 5.6% in October 1958. Of that big new share, Chevrolet's Corvair, Ford's Falcon and Chrysler's Valiant carved out a 48.1% slice to challenge American Motors and Studebaker-Packard. In their first month U.S. compact cars outsold imported cars by nearly 2 to 1.

The U.S. public has also taken a fancy to the new '60 big-car models; October's total of 526,737 units topped any October in history, including record 1955. Chevy, Ford, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Cadillac reported their best October in history; Rambler (up 21.5% over last year), Dodge (up 57%), Buick (up 72%), Mercury (up 99%) and Lincoln (up 100%) were off with a roar. But with plants shut down around the U.S. and better than 206,000 auto workers laid off because of the steel strike, industry production volume dwindled to 67,195 cars last week, about 50% of production during the middle of October.

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